


Equilibrium

by AttackoftheDarkCurses, thebuildingsnotonfire



Series: The Equilibrium Series (Main and Short Stories) [1]
Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Badass Rey, Classic Rock, Coming of Age, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, General Troublemaking, Group Team Ups, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Martial Arts, Multi, Pregnancy, Protective Kylo Ren, Save Ben Solo, Slow Burn, Smut, Violence, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-04-24 17:21:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 60
Words: 492,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14360076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AttackoftheDarkCurses/pseuds/AttackoftheDarkCurses, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebuildingsnotonfire/pseuds/thebuildingsnotonfire
Summary: Rey's not entirely sure why she chose to ask Grand Master Luke Skywalker if she could learn Taekwondo from him.She's also not entirely sure why she keeps going. Actually, she's not entirely sure about a lot of things, including whether or not she'll be able to keep up her training while her appointed guardian, Unkar Plutt, is in the dark.But she's got friends now - friends and something deep and wonderful in this martial art known as Taekwondo, and she's going to hold onto all of it as tightly as she can.She has no idea what she's in for, but she's going to find out.This is split cleanly into three parts.Act 1: Chs 1-16Act 2: Chs 17-38Act 3: Chs 39-60





	1. White Belt, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea if anyone who's reading this has done Taekwondo. Personally, I'm a Black Belt and nearly everything I write about TKD in this fic will be from personal experience. The Korean commands I mention here are the ones my own Master uses, and the belt order and testing requirements are also those of my own Dojang. Even the seemingly random monologues Luke goes off on are likely drawn from experiences with my Master or Grand Master.
> 
> Disclaimer #1: There are various types of Taekwondo and things are bound to be different from Dojang to Dojang. I'm certainly not trying to be representative of the entire Martial Art. If you think I've gotten something wrong, it's certainly possible, but it also may just be a difference in training styles.
> 
> Disclaimer #2: This is going to be a slower burn than my other fics. I'm not set on a chapter count at the moment but I'm thinking I'll probably be close to or more than 30 chapters. It'll be a lot darker because I want to do more character development, but there'll be some fluff. 
> 
> Disclaimer #2.5: Addressing the "a lot darker" comment I made in Disclaimer #2. There are going to be mentions of an abusive situation. Specifically, Rey's living situation. It won't be sexually abusive - mostly just a general unsafe and unstable living situation. I'm really not going to describe much in detail, I'm just going to make it clear that her home life is far from ideal. If I need to put up more warnings, just let me know.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


 

_White signifies a birth, or a beginning. A white belt student is a beginner searching for knowledge of the Art._

* * *

It was the 10th circle of hell. She must have died and gone to the 10th circle of hell.

That was the only plausible scenario.

Within the first few days of the school year, everyone had split into these awful little cliques, sorting themselves with unnatural ease into the groups they'd probably be in for years to come. Sure, some of the teachers were nice, but just as many were either blessedly ignorant of the social torture their students endured daily or had no real grasp on just how much ridiculously useless homework they were assigning. A spare few could have even been called cruel.

And at what point had people started pairing off? Clearly Rey had missed that day, because it seemed like there were couples everywhere in relationships she was sure wouldn't last more than a week. Honestly, she just wished they'd stop making out in front of her locker.

Even worse, it seemed like they all simultaneously hated people being two-faced and also loved gossiping. Was there some sort of bitch pill everyone had taken? If so, she must have missed that too. And it wasn't just the girls...over the summer it seemed like they'd all had complete personality changes. Of course, she didn't know what they'd been like before, but they couldn't have been  _this_ bad, right?

And since her freshman year of high school just wasn't difficult enough, Rey was also the new kid. She was hoping someone in her homeroom would be friendly, but yeah,  _no_.

So there she was, the new kid who hadn't found a clique. Or a boyfriend. Not that she wanted either, but  _still_. Lacking both made her stick out like a sore thumb.

Her fingers pulled nervously at the fraying edge of the thin deep green hoodie she wore as she looked up at the building the loomed in front of her. The school was a large, 2-story brick building and its bland facade did absolutely nothing to relieve her stress. At least it was Friday, right? Only a few classes away from the weekend.

Rey sighed.  _As if_  that made things better. She didn't know what was worse, the horror show that was the high school standing in front of her, or the nightmare of a foster parent she would head home to at the end of the day. As awful as her peers could be, their cruelty had absolutely nothing on that of Unkar Plutt.

She kicked at a rock with the edge of her sneakers, which were basically falling apart at this point, before finally working up the nerve to cross the street and walk up the stairs to the entrance of the hell-hole she'd be attending five days a week for the next four years.

 _Maybe today things will be better_.

It was something she repeated to herself every time she walked through the door to the school... _or_  the door to Plutt's home. It had more or less become her mantra, and it was possibly the only thing keeping her sane. It was certainly the only thing that kept her from crying.

It was what she repeated every night, when she inevitably woke up crying out for the parents who kept leaving. It was bad enough that they'd left the first time, but in her dreams they'd left hundreds...maybe thousands of times, and they hadn't come back. A poisonous part of her mind whispered that  _maybe they never would._

She shook the thoughts from her mind, took a deep breath, and brushed the hair out of her hazel eyes before readying herself and walking through the door.

_Maybe today things will be better._

* * *

By lunch, things had only gotten worse. Mrs. Pratt had assigned more algebra homework on algebraic expressions and her english teacher (she  _still_  couldn't remember his name) had finally gotten around to assigning some reading.

Romeo and Juliet.

_Ugh. As if this school needed more stupid relationship drama._

Rey lamented over all the work she'd have to do that weekend when he interrupted.

"Anyone sitting here?"

She didn't react the first time he said it. Mostly because people just didn't sit with her. Sure it'd only been a week, but spending an entire week of eating lunch alone in a crowded cafeteria was a bit telling. Not that she actually ate lunch. Usually there wasn't much in the fridge to pack into a lunch, and Unkar certainly didn't give her money to buy something at school

"Hey, mind if I sit with you?"

That time Rey looked up to confirm that he indeed, did want to join her. He had short hair, dark skin, and wore a warm, friendly smile. She blinked, surprised that he seemed to genuinely want to sit down, and nodded.

"I'm Finn," he greeted her. "I think we're in the same science class."

"Rey." She didn't return his smile, but he seemed nice enough, so she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. "You've got Mr. Hardy for fourth period?"

"Yup," Finn nodded. "He seems okay. Not sure how I feel about the project, though. I don't have a partner yet."

"Me neither," she sighed. For once, she almost wished the teacher had assigned partners, because finding one hadn't proved to be an easy feat. They'd been given until this afternoon to pick their partner before the Mr. Hardy assigned a topic, and she'd had no luck.

He smiled widely. Or, as widely as he could smile after taking a bite of the miserable excuse for pizza the cafeteria served. "We should team up!"

"Oh." She refrained from pointing out the sauce on his face, thought about it for a minute and nodded. After all, he was one of the first people she'd talked to all week and he seemed nice enough. "Sure."

"That's a relief," he admitted. "My grandma and I just moved here and I don't have friends here. Yet."

"Same," she said, feeling for the first time that someone understood her pain. "I don't know anyone here." A particularly gross belch came from the next table over. "I'm not even sure I want to."

"Right?" he exclaimed. "They're all  _assholes_!"

"I know!" Rey laughed. "Some girl keeps glaring at me every time I see her just because I asked her to stop making out with her boyfriend in front of my locker!"

"Nice," Finn said, grinning. He thought for a minute and extended a fist to her. "Well, you seem alright. Friends?"

She nodded, finally smiling back, bumping her fist to his. "Friends."

* * *

Rey managed to survive history without  _too_ much drama, but her teacher kept the class after the bell (" _The bell doesn't say when you can go, I say when you can go"_ ), which was infuriating, because she only had a few minutes to cross the building to get to science.

She made it just in time as Mr. Hardy had started to shut the door, and she slid into the seat Finn had saved for her. They shared a quick smile before class began and were promptly assigned a topic for the project they'd be working on for the quarter.

"Earthquakes?" Finn contemplated the topic he'd just pulled from Mr. Hardy's bucket of folded white slips. He glanced over at Rey and muttered, "Is it bad that I was hoping we could get by with a volcano model?"

Rey snorted and was about to respond when Mr. Hardy glared back at her over what she'd heard others refer to as coke-bottle glasses. It's almost as if he was  _trying_  to play the part of a high school science teacher on tv - between the glasses, the ill-fitting button up (which of course, included a pocket-protector), and the disheveled tie (it was covered in planets, which Rey actually thought was kind of cool), it really did seem as though he'd plunged head-forward into the role.

"So, students," he continued slowly, still glaring a bit (Rey did her best to avoid rolling her eyes), "we'll be using this project as a way to learn more about researching online and in the library. Along with a model, you'll need to prepare a paper and a poster, both of which I'll give you more information on next week."

Rey groaned quietly as her and Finn shared a dread-filled look.

"At the end of the quarter, your project will be presented as an entry to the school's annual science fair."

_So much for things getting better._

* * *

"Rey!"

She looked back from her locker to find Finn waving at her. He stood in front of a dark red, open locker that looked like it was piled with books, notepads, pencil boxes, and really, it just looked like a cramped but well-stocked school-supply section of Staples.

"Hey Finn, got enough stuff?" Rey laughed. "School  _just_  started, how do you even need this much?"

"My grams went a bit overboard," he shrugged shyly. "Are you going to the demonstration this afternoon? A lot of people are going to the activity fair but I heard there was going to be a demonstration when I went to homeroom."

"I was just going to go home," she explained, having heard nothing of either event. She thought for a minute and decided she'd much rather put off going home for another hour or so, if possible. "But I'll go if you're going. What's the demonstration?"

"Something to do with Martial Arts, I think," he smiled, grabbing a few folders and a book from his locker before closing and locking it. He and Rey walked in the direction of the gym. "I don't know if I'll have much time for clubs, but I was looking at the math team already. I don't want to join any of the sports teams, so I don't see any point in going to the activity fair. What about you?"

Rey bit her lip for a moment, trying to decide on the best response. It wasn't that she didn't want to join a club, or even a sport, but the issue was that those things always came with responsibilities. She didn't mind that, but at some point, she'd need a ride or she'd need to buy equipment, or bring snacks for the team, and she knew Unkar just wouldn't have it. It would be an inconvenience to him, and above all, Rey did her best to avoid being an inconvenience to him. Inconveniencing Unkar had consequences.

"I think I'll be too busy," she shrugged. No sense in explaining further, she wagered.

And thankfully, she was right. He just gave a bit of a smile, and a nod that indicated he understood. Of course, he couldn't understand, but she'd let him think he did.

* * *

Large dark blue padded mats covered a good portion of the shiny gym floor. Six people in matching white uniforms with various colored belts tied around their waists stood around the mats talking to the school's principal.

Rey and Finn took seats in the bleachers, surrounded by, but not  _too_  close to, any of their peers. Rey rolled her eyes as she heard the nervous comments of those around her. " _Do you think they'll break stuff?", "Are they ninjas?", "Are they really going to fight?"_

Apparently her peers were under the impression that they'd become extras in a Jackie Chan flick.

"Good afternoon students," Principal Holdo greeted, finally turning away from the uniformed group to face the small crowd. Her hair was an odd lavender color, but she managed to successfully command the room's attention, which was likely what made her such a good principal.

"I expect you to be respectful and on your best behavior for Grand Master Skywalker and his students. Don't forget," she threatened softly, "we're still at school. The school day might be over, but I can still put you in detention." She nodded in the direction of one of the uniformed men, and walked to the edge of the bleachers to take a seat with another one of the teachers.

The man she'd nodded to had graying sandy-blonde hair and a matching beard. His blue eyes pierced the audience. He was one of the two uniformed people who wore a black belt, but his was decorated with quite a few gold stripes along one edge.

"Hello," he said kindly, the corner of his mouth twitching into a semblance of a smile. "I'm Grand Master Skywalker. I run and operate a Dojang here in Coruscant, teaching Taekwondo, and a few times a year we like to reach out to the community to show what we do, and to see if anyone wants to join us."

He paused for a minute and started walking across the mat as he spoke to them. He didn't yell, as their gym teachers usually had to. Instead he spoke somewhat softly, but it seemed as though his voice could be heard easily by everyone.

"Taekwondo is a Korean Martial Art," he explained, still pacing across the mat. He stopped for a minute and looked up at the forty or so students who had deigned to show up for the demonstration. " _Martial. Art._ I'm sure you've all heard of that before." His blue eyes twinkled, and it seemed like he was looking directly at Rey. "After all, who  _hasn't_  seen the Karate Kid?"

Rey blinked and felt herself turn red. It was like he'd read her mind. Of course, he hadn't, but somehow it was still completely embarrassing.

"But anyway," he sighed, returning to his pacing, "Life isn't a movie, and this is Taekwondo, not Karate. So,  _Martial Art_. Can anyone tell me which of those words is the most important?"

Rey shrunk back as various students raised their hands. No  _way_ was she going to attempt to make an idiot out of herself. Besides, she honestly didn't know the answer. Sure, it seemed like a 50/50 shot, but Rey had a feeling there wasn't a right answer. Finn glanced over at her and shrugged. Looked like he didn't care to answer either.

"Martial?" An unidentified student offered.

"Mmm," Grand Master Skywalker hummed noncommittally. "Anyone else?"

A boy a few rows behind Rey took a guess, likely just assuming the last student had been incorrect. "Art?"

"Could be," Grand Master Skywalker shrugged again. "Do you want to know the answer?"

He didn't wait for a response before continuing. "I'm not sure there is one," he explained, "I've been learning in the way of Taekwondo my whole life, even teaching for a good portion of it, and," he stopped pacing, and faced the students again, "and I don't know the answer. I know you need both to be a good martial artist - a good Taekwondoian. You need both to be a good teacher and a good student. I'd wager they're equally important. I'd guess they should be balanced."

He smiled, and shrugged again. "But who am I to say?"

One of the uniformed men behind the Grand Master snorted softly.

"Ben," Grand Master Skywalker called out in a warm, but possibly threatening voice. "Sounds like you'd like to start our demonstration off?"

He'd spoken to the man who'd snorted - the only other man who was wearing a black belt, though from Rey's seat she could see that the man was much younger, and seemed to still be a student. He stepped forward and stood in front of the Grand Master, then bowed.

"Let's go with Koryo," she heard the older man say quietly.

The younger man,  _Ben_ , she supposed, seemed to pause before asking, "Not Kumgang?"

"I'm sure I said Koryo." The older man was considerably shorter than Ben, but somehow he was infinitely more intimidating. It was something that came with being a Grand Master, Rey guessed.

After a few seconds the younger man gave a quick nod, and replied quietly, "Yes, sir."

The Grand Master didn't acknowledge him, and instead, stepped off the mat. "This is Ben," he explained to the small audience. "Ben just successfully tested for his second degree Black Belt, and he's going to show you a Black Belt form - Koryo. There are many forms, or  _poomse_ , that a student learns, but essentially a  _poomse_  is a pattern of defense and attack moves. Think of it like…" the man paused before coming up with the proper word, "like shadow-fighting. Each move is to either attack an enemy or defend yourself from one."

The older man cleared his throat and nodded to Ben, who moved to stand at attention in the middle of the mats.

" _Charyut. Kyungnet."_ The man commanded. Ben immediately stood straight, arms at his side, and bowed to the captive audience. Rey was a bit impressed with the fact that the demonstration had managed to get the attention of a rowdy group of teenagers. As far as she'd seen, there wasn't much that could.

" _Koryo junbi. Sijak."_ The Grand Master commanded quietly, watching from the sidelines as his student started off into a series of moves.

It only took a few minutes, but Rey was...well,  _entranced_  was the only word she'd come up with by the end of the night. The movements he'd made were fluid and graceful, but he also moved with something that seemed like a fierce strength. Maybe even anger.

As soon as the word " _Sijak_ " had been uttered, the student began flicking his open palms to either side of him, kicking higher than his head with what seemed like perfect balance, his long, dark hair occasionally falling over his face. He moved across the floor in a flurry of movements which Rey thought were probably perfectly executed, and after a few minutes he miraculously returned to the same point he'd started at, returning to his starting position.

A few more commands from the Grand Master, and the man was bowing again, and returning to his spot next to the other Taekwondo students.

"I should have explained," the older man mentioned to the crowd. "Since Taekwondo is a Korean Martial Art, we usually give commands in Korean. If I say anything that doesn't sound English, that's probably why." He smiled, "Okay, now who wants to see some breaks?"

* * *

Rey hadn't intended to stay the entire time, but it just seemed  _rude_  to leave. At least that's the excuse she gave Finn, who started tugging at the sleeve of her hoodie not twenty minutes into the demonstration, which ended up taking about an hour. They saw dozens of boards broken, often more than one at a time, and some of the Taekwondo students even showed various takedowns and self-defense moves.

Rey was completely hooked.

She wasn't sure what it was that interested her so much, but she bounded over to the Grand Master at the end of the demonstration, remembering a few seconds too late that she found him completely intimidating.  _Ah well,_  he'd seen her and it was too late to back away now.

"Grand Master Skywalker?" she asked quietly, bouncing nervously on the heels of her feet.

"Hey kid," he smiled warmly, instantly putting her at ease. "What's your name? What can I do for you?"

"I'm Rey," she smiled. "I loved the demonstration," she said, starting to feel nervous again.  _What was she doing? What did she want?_  Her heart was pounding. Something about what she'd just seen felt right, and she had to know why. She glanced up at the man before opening her mouth to say the last thing she expected.

"Can you teach me?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Training Begins
> 
> I'm going to do my best to make it so you can figure out the Korean from context, but I'll also post explanations at the end of each chapter.
> 
> Charyut - Attention (a stance, feet together, standing straight, arms at your sides)  
> Kyungnet - Bow  
> Kumgang - A Black Belt Poomse/Form usually learned after Koryo  
> Koryo - A Poomse/Form generally learned by a Bodan (Black Belt candidate), usually part of Black Belt testing  
> Koryo junbi - Starting stance for the form/poomse Koryo  
> Poomse: I've already explained this one, but there are like three plausible spellings for it, so if I've chosen one that offends anyone...well, pretend I spelled it differently.  
> Sijak - Begin/Start
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 



	2. White Belt, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moving forward with the first non-fluff piece I've written (who am I kidding, obviously we'll have fluff eventually, but it might take a little while) - I'm noticing that the chapter lengths for this story are a bit longer than my last, and I plan on having more of a chapter count too, so I apologize in advance for the slow burn.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


Rey awoke to the sound of Unkar stomping around upstairs, moving around the kitchen before he left for the day. Her room, if you could call it that, was in the small basement below the house, and while it was a bit dark and musty, she was at least thankful for the fact that Unkar almost never bothered her there. It wasn't much, but it felt safer than the rest of the house.

Normally she'd stay in bed as long as possible, before the small clock on the floor near her bed shrieked warnings that the bus was nearby. This morning was different. Today was her first day of training, and Rey felt her stomach fill with with a sense of nervous anticipation. Of course, she'd have to get through an entire school day first, but the idea of spending hours at the Dojang after school rather than coming directly home to Plutt was a welcome relief.

She showered quickly in the small bathroom that was in the basement and pulled on well-worn jeans and a thin, plain gray sweatshirt, then pulled her hair into a series of three buns that went down the back of her head.

Climbing the stairs, she said a quick prayer that Unkar had left for the morning.

"Where are you off to, girl?" his rough and grating voice came from the kitchen.

 _No such luck_.

She answered quickly and quietly. "School."

He huffed, but thankfully didn't leave the kitchen. Rey made her way to the front door, but stopped when she heard his voice again, "Wasting your time with that. Come work at the shop. Maybe you'd be more useful."

Rey pursed her lips and held her tongue. Obviously she had no intention of doing as he suggested, but she'd learned the hard way not to snap at him. After a few seconds of mentally talking herself down, she sighed, and left to wait for the school bus without answering him.

* * *

Despite the brief run in with her guardian, Rey's morning went well. She was pleased with the high marks she'd received in an Algebra test that was passed back, and by some miracle, she'd been one of three students who hadn't been picked to read lines from  _Romeo and Juliet_ out loud in English.

Overall, it wasn't a bad start to the day.

Rey knew better though. Somewhere, at some point in time, something was going to go wrong. She could feel it. She didn't know why, when, or where, but it just would. It had to. That's just what happened every time things were going well.

Unfortunately, she wasn't wrong.

"Rey," she heard Finn hiss. "Do you have  _any_  idea what I just heard from Emily? One of the girls in your Algebra class?"

Rey shrugged.  _Better to act aloof_ , she thought.

"Are you  _seriously_  sell-?"

Her eyes widened. She grabbed him by his jacket and darted around the corner of the cafeteria. She looked around desperately, hoping no teachers had heard him. " _Finn!"_ she whispered, interrupting him, thoroughly annoyed. "Could you  _not_  say that out loud?" She kept eye contact with the table in front of her and said quietly, "It's not a big deal. I need the money."

He wrestled away from her grip, scoffing and shaking his head. "So it's true, then? Do you have any idea how much trouble you'll get in?"

"We're not talking about this," she said firmly. "And I assume you won't spread rumors. Next time you want to know what I'm doing, maybe you should just ask me."

Before he had the chance to reply, Rey had left the table, choosing to spend her lunch in the library, far away from her only friend.

"Miss Kenobi?"

Rey had been just about to enter the library when she heard the warm, familiar voice. She turned and saw the friendly face and somewhat shocking hair of Principal Holdo. Her (justified) anger suddenly wilted into meekness.

"Hi," she replied, a bit shyly. She'd never talked directly to the woman before, and she was a little surprised the Principal knew her name. That didn't bode well.

"Sorry to interrupt," the woman smiled, "my good friend, Luke, mentioned you're going to start training with him this week and I just wanted to tell you I think it's a great idea."

Rey's head tilted questioningly. "Luke?"

"Oh," the woman chuckled, "Well, you'll probably have to call him Grand Master, or Master Skywalker, but to me, he's Luke. I've known his sister Leia for a long time." She smiled broadly, clearly fond of the siblings, "We go way back. I have a feeling you'll love learning from Luke. He's a great teacher."

Rey tentatively returned Principal Holdo's smile. "My first lesson is tonight," she explained, feeling more comfortable. "I can't wait."

"That's good," Holdo nodded, "I hope you feel at home there. Here, too. You're new to this district, right?"

Rey gave a short nod of confirmation.

"Well if you have any trouble or if you were need someone to talk to, just let me know," the woman's smile turned a bit sad, and Rey had a feeling the Principal knew more about her than she was letting on. "Luke would be good for that too."

Rey paused for a minute, unsure of what to say. She could never tell if adults were being genuine when they said things like that. There had been plenty of times before when an adult would say things like " _You can talk to me anytime"_ or " _I'll always be here whenever you need"_  but really, all they meant was " _You can talk, but I probably won't listen because I'm too busy for you"_  or " _I'll be here for you until I have a kid of my own and then I won't need you anymore_."

Principal Holdo seemed genuine, but plenty of others had too.

So Rey chose not to say all the things she should have said. Instead, she did the  _good girl_  thing, smiling and thanking her school principal, pretending she hadn't heard it all before.

* * *

The walk to the 367 bus stop was short, but Rey hadn't planned well for the cold fall breeze, and her thin sweatshirt just wasn't cutting it. She'd used her time in the library to plot the course for the Dojang, and discovered, with relief, that it was only a short walk from one of the stops on this line, so she wouldn't need to switch between any buses.

The trip home was a different story. Plutt lived in the part of the school district called Jakku, and unfortunately it was in the outer rim of the area. She'd have to take two different buses, and deal with a long walk to get back.

The biggest catch, of course, was how she'd manage to pay for the bus fare. While waiting at the bus stop she took out the small bundle of bills from her pocket and counted what she had. It was just enough to cover the fees she'd need to pay today, along with the cost of her uniform, but it wasn't going to cover the bus fare.

She contemplated her options when the bus pulled up, and thankfully, both the front and back doors opened. Rey glanced over at the front door and noticed that the bus driver was busy with a long line of riders who were diligently paying their fare, so she snuck past an exiting rider and slipped in through the back door of the bus. Nobody seemed to notice. She took a seat quickly and let out a small sigh of relief, thanking her lucky stars for her own small size.

A small voice in her head kept telling her  _this might all be more trouble than it's worth_. A louder voice kept urging her on, telling her this was fate, or destiny, or some equivalent bullshit. The loudest voice just reminded her of the last time she'd gone straight home and found Unkar there. A little trouble was worth it.

Rey didn't believe in fate, or destiny, or whatever people wanted to call it. Fate was a silly thing to believe in, and if it  _was_  real, then it was kind of a bitch. Was she really fated to be abandoned at a hospital, then tossed from foster home to foster home until she ended up with Unkar, who was easily her worst guardian so far?

Was that  _really_  what the cards had in store for her?

No. She refused to believe it.

But that didn't stop the unsettling feeling she had. Something was pulling her toward the Dojang - toward training. Rey had been thinking about it in the few weeks since the demonstration and she still couldn't put her finger on whatever possessed her to march up to Master Luke Skywalker and insist on being trained.

Whatever it had been, Rey refused to believe it was fate.

* * *

"Rey Kenobi," Master Skywalker greeted her. He glanced back down at the paper she'd filled out and his face took on a bit of a perplexed look. "Huh _. Kenobi._ "

His clear blue eyes shot back up at Rey. "Any relation to Ben Kenobi?"

Rey shrugged, "I wouldn't know.."

"Oh?" he blinked. "Well, if you don't mind me asking, where are you from?"

"Nowhere," she replied softly.

"Nobody is from nowhere," he chuckled.

Rey gave a small smile. "Jakku."

"Oh," Master Skywalker paused. "Yeah, that's pretty much nowhere. Okay, well, normally we'd talk about everything with a parent or guardian, but it doesn't seem like you've brought one."

Rey's eyes widened as she stumbled for an explanation. "He's...uh...he's working late tonight."

"No problem," Master Skywalker smiled. "Just make sure you bring him in soon. Since he isn't here tonight, he can't sign the waiver we need for insurance, so you won't be able to practice with us." He frowned a bit when Rey's face fell. "You can start practicing as soon as you bring it back signed, I promise. Now," he gestured toward the small office by the entry, "Ben is going to help you fill out the other forms, and he'll give you a bit of an introduction."

Rey took a quick look through the large window into the office and saw the dark-haired man from the demonstration sitting at a desk, bent over a stack of paperwork. She saw him studying something in front of him, a pen clasped between his lips, seeming frustrated.

"Ben's starting to help me with more of the jobs a Master's responsible for," the Grand Master explained, "that's why he'll be working with you tonight while I teach the rest of the class."

Rey nodded, and followed the man into the small office.

"Ben!" Master Skywalker greeted jovially, "This is Rey."

Ben looked up from the desk and nodded once, before offering a short, but polite, "Hello."

"She's our new student," Master Skywalker explained. "Please make sure we have all the forms filled out, and make sure she's got a dobok. If you have time, I'd like you to show her how to tie her belt before she leaves so we can get started with the lesson right away when she gets here tomorrow."

Ben gave another short nod, and said nothing before Master Skywalker left except a quick, "Yes, sir."

When he left the room, Ben turned to a filing cabinet, pulling half a dozen sheets from various folders in the top drawer. He turned back to the desk and looked up at Rey, then gestured for her to sit down across from him. She was only  _mildly_  intimidated...or at least, that's what she kept telling herself.

"Where are your parents?" he asked, not unkindly. His voice was deep, and he spoke with authority.

Rey blinked for a minute. "I don't have any. My foster father's working late."

His neutral expression turned into a frown. "Oh," he said quietly, "normally we'd have a guardian fill all of this out." He quirked his lips and fiddled with the pen he held for a minute, glancing over the paperwork. "Hmm. I guess there's no harm in having you fill out most of this, but your foster father needs to sign it."

"Master Skywalker said I can bring them back signed when I come for class tomorrow."

His eyebrows pulled together as if he disliked that suggestion, but he eventually nodded. "It's a bit unusual," he explained. "Most parents or guardians want to meet Master Skywalker and see where their kid is training, but technically, as long as he signs the forms we should be okay. Here," he spun the small stack of paper around so she could read it. "Let's get started."

* * *

It took about twenty minutes to fill out forms, and Ben highlighted each area that required a guardian's signature. Rey knew full well Plutt would never sign the documents (he avoided putting his name down on anything he couldn't make money on), but she certainly never mentioned that to Ben. She was sure the signature she would put down would be nicer than Plutt's actual signature anyway. She'd already handed over the cost of the month's classes, plus the fee for her uniform, so she didn't think there was much  _official business_  left.

"I think," Ben flipped through the pages, "we're done." He looked up at Rey and his lips lifted up into what she imagined was the beginning of a smile. "Want to try on your dobok?"

There was that word again. "Dobok?"

He chuckled, took a white bundle off one of the filing cabinets, and stood up, gesturing toward the door. They walked along the back of a large open room - it had a light hardwood floor, and each wall was lined with mirrors. There was a small stack of red and blue mats in one corner, and another corner boasted a few punching bags. About two dozen students were lined up at the front of the room, being led through a series of kicks.

"Rey."

She looked back at Ben, who was trying to get her attention. She hadn't realized she'd stopped to watch the students. Rey blushed and looked away, but continued following Ben, who led her just out of the room, to a hallway.

"We have two locker rooms here, so if you need to change before or after class, this is where you'll go," he explained. "There are extra lockers if you want to use one, but you won't officially get your own locker until you have sparring gear. That's not usually until you get to your Green Belt."

She nodded, feeling as though she made a serious misstep by not taking notes all evening.

He handed her the plastic-wrapped white bundle and nodded in the direction of one of the doors. "I'm pretty sure this'll be your size. Let me know if I guessed it wrong. Don't worry about the belt yet," he grinned. "It takes a while to figure out how to tie it. We can go over it when you get out."

* * *

The locker room was a bit small, with four shower stalls, a separate bathroom, a row of sinks and mirrors, and about twenty lockers. There were benches throughout the middle of the room, and they were the same dark blue as the lockers. Overall, it was about what Rey had expected, and she pranced happily around the empty room.

The dobok fit  _perfectly_. Rey somehow knew she absolutely shouldn't admit it out loud, but the uniform felt more like a pair of pajamas than something she'd work out in. The fabric was surprisingly soft, but solid in a way that implied it would be nearly impossible to rip. It was a stark white. The pants were plain - just white with a drawstring at her waist, and they came up a bit higher on her than she'd expected. She kept her tank-top on since the top of the dobok came down in a low v at her chest. The arms were just a little longer than she would have normally liked, but somehow that just made the uniform more comfortable.

Deciding she'd probably been in the locker room too long, she grabbed her things and returned to the hallway where Ben waited for her. Now that she had taken the time to examine her own dobok, she noticed his. It looked softer - more worn, with no crease lines, and even a few stray fibers at the hems. Unlike hers, his collar was black, a sharp contrast to the unusual but fitting faded white of the rest of his uniform.

"Hmm," he glanced down, inspecting the uniform. "The sleeves are a little long, but it looks like it fits. How does it feel?"

She beamed. "It's  _so_  comfortable!"

"Good," Ben chuckled, "you should be able to move around in it easily. That's the point."

He turned and walked toward the large training room, finding a corner that wasn't being used.

"Okay, we just need to go over a few things." Ben sat on the floor, legs folded under him, and gestured that Rey should face him and do the same. She wasn't nearly as graceful as he'd been, and she almost fell trying to knot her legs together, but after a minute or so she finally settled down a couple of feet in front of him.

"All set?" he smirked. "We'll work on flexibility and balance at some point."

She huffed quietly and nodded, a little embarrassed by her moment of klutziness.

"Well it looks like you managed to get the dobok on properly, so that's a good start," he said. "There are a few things you need to keep in mind, though. You need to be respectful with that uniform. No balling it up in your backpack after class, and definitely don't leave it laying around on a floor. Always fold it up when you aren't wearing it, and keep it clean. You need to wear this every time you practice, but you can't wear it unless you're practicing, promoting, or at a competition."

He sighed, "A few years ago there was an Orange Belt who thought it'd make a good Halloween costume. Don't make the same mistake. Sound doable?"

Rey blinked, still absorbing everything he'd said. She didn't completely understand the need for so many rules, but she assumed that wouldn't be a great thing to say. Instead, she settled for nodding.

"Okay," he nodded, "Good. Let's tie that belt."

* * *

He had her practice tying and untying her belt for what felt like an hour. In reality, Rey knew it was probably half that, but  _still_.

Finally, he watched her tie the knot, then reached out to take the ends of the tied belt, and found them to be the same length. He gave a sharp nod, and a slight smile. "Good. That was much better. Try to keep them even." He released them and took a step back, then crossed his arms. "I think that's all for tonight."

"Is it okay if I stay here until class is over?" she asked. "I have some reading I can do."

Ben frowned. "Practice usually finishes late, isn't your guardian going to worry?"

"Not really," Rey muttered. She looked up to give him a better answer, but the look on his face indicated he'd heard what she'd said.

He looked down at her through warm brown eyes, considering her expression.

"Why not?"

Rey shrugged, and hoped it wouldn't be considered rude if she didn't give any additional answer.

"Rey-"

Whatever he'd been about to say was cut off by Master Skywalker. "You're in uniform!" he smiled at Rey. "It looks great! Did you get everything filled out?"

She nodded. "I'm still having a bit of trouble with the belt, but I think it'll be okay."

"You just need practice," the older man reassured her. "Well, I'm letting class out a bit early so everyone has some free time to work on things together before they leave. What time are you getting picked up?"

Rey hesitated before replying. "I'm not. I took a bus."

"And you're taking a bus back?" Ben asked, frowning when she replied with a nod.

Master Skywalker frowned too. "I didn't know there were any buses that went to the Jakku District."

" _Jakku?"_

Rey winced and looked up to see the surprised look on Ben's face. "It's  _two_  buses, technically," she admitted, then added quietly, "and a bit of a walk…"

"A  _bit_  of a walk?" Ben demanded. "I'd say it's more like a mile and a half. Am I right?"

Rey sighed and nodded, desperately hoping they wouldn't decide to call Unkar. The number she'd given them for her guardian wasn't  _exactly_  accurate.

Master Skywalker pitched in, apparently deciding it was a good moment for a lesson. "Rey, a good portion of what you'll learn here will be self-defense. The first rule of self-defense is to never knowingly put yourself in a dangerous situation," his frown deepened. "I'd say walking home alone at night through the Jakku District is a dangerous situation, especially for someone who's only fourteen."

"I'll be fifteen on my next birthday," she protested. She glanced between the two men and sighed, knowing she'd already lost the battle.

Master Skywalker smirked. "Nice try, kid. Ben's almost twenty-two and he's been training with me since he was your age, and I  _still_ wouldn't want him to walk around Jakku alone at night."

Ben grumbled a bit at the comment, saying something about being able to handle himself, but Master Skywalker shut him up with a glance.

"What time does your foster father get out of work?" Ben asked.

Rey shrugged, knowing it was usually after 1 AM before Unkar stumbled home from the local bar. "It'll probably be really late. After midnight."

"Hmmm," Master Skywalker considered the situation for a minute before smiling and looking over at Ben. "Why don't we get some pizza? I told Amilyn I'd have dinner with her tonight, and I'm sure she wouldn't mind a couple extra guests. After dinner we can drop Rey off." He looked over at her expectantly. "Does that sound okay? I'd feel bad dropping you off at home without knowing you've had dinner."

It felt like her heart was going to burst. Rey genuinely couldn't remember the last time someone had cared enough to be that considerate. The growling in her stomach reminded her that she also couldn't remember the last time she'd had a full meal that wasn't just cobbled together from whatever scraps she found in the kitchen.

Part of her wanted to let all of those thoughts gush out so Master Skywalker would know how much she appreciated it, but then she remembered he was an adult. Rey just smiled broadly and accepted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: First Promotion
> 
> I don't think I used too many words that need defining, but here are a couple I noticed:
> 
> Dojang - My Master always says that a Dojang is a martial artist's home and family (which is kind of sweet), but technically it's the name for the formal training center.
> 
> Dobok - The uniform of a Taekwondoian. Usually white, but I've seen some that are different colors.. Honestly, the reaction I wrote for Rey was my first reaction to putting one on. The ones my Dojang uses are SO comfortable - if I could get away with wearing them as pajamas I would, but I'm mildly terrified of how my Master would react to that, so I don't.
> 
> Note: If you notice me capitalizing things that don't seem to need capitalizing (Green Belt, Master, Dojang, etc.) just know that I'm likely treating them as proper nouns to give them their due respect. Also, Luke is being a bit more casual with Rey than most Grand Masters would be, but I get the impression Luke would have a soft spot for kids (at least that's how I like to write him).
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 



	3. Yellow Belt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally planning to do something a bit different with this and write it entirely from Rey's POV, but there are a few scenes (like one in this chapter) that I wanted to bring in and I can't do that if I stick to Rey's POV. So this'll be a bit more like the writing style I've used for my previous fics.
> 
> Also, it's probably about time that I give my wonderful husband (who may or may not turn into a bit of a Reylo shipper after a few drinks) credit for beta-ing this fic. Thanks thebuildingsnotonfire, you're the best! Sorry about the flowery descriptions of certain unnamed, attractive characters.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


_Yellow signifies the first beam of sunlight, shining upon a seed to give it new strength with the beginning of new life. A yellow belt student is given their first ray of knowledge._

* * *

The apartment above the Dojang was a bit small, but Luke had never found that he needed more space than it provided. The walls were a dull off-white, the floors a dark hardwood, and there were a surprising amount of potted plants in every room. He was terrible at decorating, so the plants were as good as it was going to get. Ben had taken over the guest room years ago, and while it took a fair amount of adjusting for them both, they usually got along well, which was a relief, considering how much time they spent together.

Over the last few years Luke had become surprisingly adept at reading his moods, and as he sat down across from Ben, he could tell something was off.

His nephew was quieter than usual, and he was thrumming his fingers nervously on the dining room table. Breakfast passed in silence. Ben wasn't usually talkative, but they would normally discuss lesson plans over whatever they managed to scrounge up for breakfast.

Luke cleared his throat. "Everything okay over there?"

Ben snapped out of whatever thought process he'd been lost in and looked up at Luke. "Yeah," he said carefully. "Just, something's been bothering me."

Luke chuckled. "You don't say?"

Ben rolled his eyes, then reminded himself  _not_  to roll his eyes at his Uncle-slash-Master. "Sorry," he muttered, "It's just that new kid that showed up yesterday. Rey."

"She seems like a good kid, a bit flighty but nothing we haven't seen before. Luke's brows knitted together. "Why? Did she give you any trouble?"

"No, nothing like that," he answered quickly, internally wincing at how easily he gave his thoughts away."I just have a bad feeling." He ran his hand through his hair and then looked down at the table thoughtfully. "Doesn't it seem odd that her guardian wasn't there last night?"

"I guess," Luke shrugged, "but she's not the first skittish one to come through our doors. He might just work odd hours."

Ben's frown threatened to turn into a scowl. Luke was a brilliant teacher and a great man, but in his opinion, he was far too trusting.

"I'm not sure." Ben relented, and then shook his head. "I don't know, something about it felt off."

Luke considered it for a minute and nodded. "Tell you what, let's keep an eye on her, then. We'll make sure she doesn't try to take the bus home after classes - we'll give her rides home." He paused. "Actually, now that you mention it, I do think it's a bit strange that he'd let her walk home through Jakku alone at night. Yeah," he nodded again, "Yeah, definitely keep an eye on her."

"Yes sir," Ben replied quietly, still a bit lost in thought.

"None of that now," Luke groused, "Remember what I said, when we're in dobok, it's sir. Maybe when we're around students, if we make a habit of taking them out to dinner. But the rest of the time, just call me Uncle Luke. Seriously, kid," he laughed, "I used to baby-sit you. I think it's time to drop the 'sir'."

Ben turned a bit red and shrugged.

"Oh, right, I forgot to mention," Luke added, "Did you notice Rey's last name?"

"Yeah. I was kind of surprised she didn't have her guardian's last name."

"I don't know how the system works," Luke shrugged, "but I didn't expect to see the name  _Kenobi_."

"Kenobi…" he thought for a minute before his eyes shot up to Luke's, his face turning pale, "Like,  _Ben Kenobi_? Your Master?"

Luke hummed, "Yeah, and your namesake too. I didn't think Ben had any grandkids or...I don't know," he sighed, "great-nieces? I'm not sure what she'd be to him, if they're actually related. I still have his things though. Maybe I could see if he had any pictures or anything."

"That'd be a hell of a coincidence, don't you think? What are the odds that she'd end up in the system, keeping that name, and then end up here, training under you?"

"I don't know," Luke admitted. "But it's worth looking into. If she's actually his granddaughter, or niece, or something, she deserves to know who he was."

Ben thought for a moment and nodded.

"Well it's settled, then," Luke smiled. "You keep an eye on the kid, and I'll go through the boxes and see if I can find anything."

* * *

When she wasn't at school or the Dojang, Rey made a point to spend as much time at Finn's as possible. She'd been attending classes at the Dojang for about three weeks, and while she only needed to attend twice a week, she'd made a point of going at least three times.

_It sure beat going home._

Tonight was an exception. It was Friday, and Grand Master Luke had announced that the class that evening would be a sparring workshop for all the seniors, and Rey was definitely  _not_  a senior. Her first promotion was about a month away, and she hadn't yet been allowed to spar. That was probably for the best. Rey cringed, picturing herself tripping over her own feet trying to kick an imaginary partner.  _No need to rush into sparring_.

"Can you hand me the green paint?" Finn asked, too focused in on the almost-finished model in front of him to notice that she'd been lost in thought.

She handed him the paint and returned to the portion of the model she'd been working on - little trees to complete the small cityscape they'd built. They hadn't really been sure how to make a model of an earthquake until Finn had the brilliant idea to see if they could model an earthquake-resistant structure.

Thankfully their teacher had agreed, and now Rey sat in front of two horizontal pieces of plywood, separated by half a dozen springs, so when you pressed down on the top layer of plywood, the whole cityscape that was built on top of it bounced and swayed as if it was experiencing an earthquake.

The project was pretty neat, and Rey thought that she and Finn had worked well together. Unfortunately that was probably because Finn only spoke to her when it involved the project.

"Are you still mad at me?"

He scoffed and kept painting.

"Finn," she whined, "You know I'm only doing it because I need cash for Taekwondo lessons."

"Yeah, and I'll bet your instructors would be real happy to find out how you're paying them," he muttered, refusing to meet her eyes.

Rey felt her face fall as she heard his stinging words. He was right, of course, but that only made things worse. She returned to the delicate work she'd been doing - decorating the tiny, silly little trees, but her fingers were shaking. All her concentration went into trying to keep her tears from falling. She was used to not having friends, but she wasn't used to having one and then losing them.

Her fingers picked at the bristly material they'd used for the little trees, and she was so focused on it that she completely missed the fact that Finn had stopped painting, and was currently watching her pretend she wasn't falling apart.

"Rey?" His soft voice broke the uncomfortable silence. "Are you okay?"

She tried to blink back her tears, failed, and tried to breathe in as much as she could.  _Not now not now not now_ , she told herself.  _Not in front of Finn._

"Rey, I'm sorry," she heard him say, "I didn't know you'd be this upset."

She swallowed thickly and - after two forevers of wondering if she looked as gross as she felt - looked up from the table, meeting his eyes. They were wide, and full of what seemed like regret. "It's okay," she sniffled.

"No, it's not," he said. His face had twisted with that awkward discomfort most boys felt when realizing they'd made a girl cry. "I didn't mean to make you cry."

"It's fine," she nodded, wiping her eyes. She swallowed hard, and plastered on a smile. "It's fine," she repeated. "Totally fine."

Maybe if she said it enough, it'd be true.

* * *

It didn't take more than a day or so to fall back into a normal routine with Finn. Thankfully he'd decided that watching a girl almost cry was just too much to handle, and he had stopped pestering her about what she'd been doing.

Rey knew she'd have to talk to him eventually, and she spent the bus ride to the Dojang that Wednesday afternoon deciding how to do it. Obviously he was still disappointed with her, but there wasn't much she could do about it. It wasn't like she went out of her way to tell everyone what life with Unkar was like. By the time she got to her stop, she'd given up. It seemed that there was no right answer.

"Good afternoon, Rey," Master Skywalker greeted her. There were only a few other students there, and Rey looked around for the rest. "Ah, small class tonight," he explained. "The seniors are headed to a big competition tomorrow, so I gave them tonight to rest. We don't need any last minute injuries. That's why Ben's not here tonight. So," he smiled, "tonight, it's just a few of the juniors, and we're going to cover some basics."

He gestured toward the locker rooms, and she did as asked, leaving the room to change into her dobok, which she'd been careful to fold and keep in a clean bag inside her backpack. She came back after a few minutes, having successfully mastered belt-tying in the previous week.

Once the class had bowed in and greeted Master Skywalker, he ordered them all to sit comfortably, and took a seat on the floor, facing them.

"Can anyone tell me what Taekwondo is? Miss Kenobi? How about you?"

Rey blinked. She's learned in her first week that Master Luke was fond of asking these open-ended questions, which she just so happened to be terrible at answering. Naturally, she was one of his favorite targets. "Uh, well," she stammered, and answered lamely, "...it's about kicking and punching, and being able to protect yourself...and breaking  _things_...but not  _people_?"

Master Skywalker gazed at her for a moment and nodded.

She smiled, relieved that she'd  _finally_ gotten one of his questions right.

"Impressive," he said dryly, "Almost every word in that sentence was wrong."

* * *

On their way out of the Dojang on the following Monday, Master Skywalker tossed Ben a set of keys. Ben gestured toward the white Ford Focus that was parked adjacent to the sidewalk, explaining "I prefer my car. This one's no fun," he smirked. "It's like he knows whenever I go over the speed limit."

Rey laughed, part of her feeling like Master Skywalker had some sort of mind-reading ability. It really did seem that way sometimes. She got in and buckled up, then waited for Ben to pick a playlist of loud and offensive music that she loved, and that Master Skywalker would have absolutely hated.

It was their routine. Ben had been giving her rides home for a month or so now, and she'd spent the first week or so arguing against it and feeling awkward and like an inconvenience, but at some point she decided to just enjoy the company.

Ben had seemed intimidating at first, with his (perfectly) messy black hair, dark eyes (that seemed to stare right through her), and his almost eerily quiet demeanor (that some of the older students seemed to think was intimidating). The fact that he was the senior-most Black Belt in the Dojang (second only to Grand Master Luke) just made him even more menacing.

Thankfully, Rey was getting used to him after a few trips to Jakku, and if the small smiles, smirks, and occasional chuckles were any indication, he was warming up to her too.

"Hey, Rey?" He asked, snapping her out of the thoughts she'd gotten lost in. She hadn't even noticed that he'd turned down the music to talk to her. "Mind if I ask you about your foster father?"

She bit her lip. She never liked talking about Unkar, but you couldn't tell people that because then they'd start asking more questions. "Sure," she answered quietly.

"I've been a little surprised that he hasn't stopped by the Dojang yet," Ben hesitated, not taking his eyes off the road. "You've been taking classes with us for a month now, and your first promotion is coming up. Doesn't he want to see what you've been learning?"

Rey paused. Part of her would have loved to tell Ben everything. Despite how intimidating he still seemed, he also seemed... _safe_. Unfortunately, she knew that telling him would only lead to trouble. Either nothing would change and Plutt would just be angry with her, which would make things worse, or she'd be placed in a new home, and probably have to change districts, which would be catastrophic. She hadn't been training at the Dojang for long, but the thought of leaving made her heart ache.

"He does," she nodded, lying through her teeth. Plutt didn't even know what she'd been doing after school. "But he has a hard time being around a lot of new people," she explained, having no idea where the lie was coming from. "I think coming to a promotion would just make him nervous. Please don't take it personally."

"Oh, so, that's the reason he hasn't come by?"

"Yeah," she said. "He'd really like to meet everyone, but he doesn't like crowds, and the Dojang is always so crowded," she explained, the words leaving a terribly bitter taste in her mouth. The idea of making excuses for Plutt was nauseating, but she supposed it was better than the alternatives.

Ben hummed, glancing over at her during a red light, considering what she'd said. "And everything's okay at home?"

"Perfect," her traitorous voice said. Rey felt her lips move into a smile, and wondered when she got so good at lying. "Couldn't be better."

* * *

Rey paced nervously in front of the locker she'd been using. Most of the other students who were promoting were already out stretching, but she still didn't have her belt on. Every time she went to tie it her fingers shook, and the knot came out all wrong.

"Here, let me help," a small voice offered. Jess' dexterous fingers wrapped the White Belt around Rey's waist twice, then tied the knot Rey had been struggling with.

Rey turned around and flashed the Blue Belt a nervous smile. "Thanks Jess. I'm sorry," she said, sitting on a bench that was positioned in front of her locker. "I'm just so nervous."

"I was too," Jess admitted, sitting next to her. "I mean, I'm a little nervous at every promotion, but never as nervous as I was for my first one. But don't worry," she smiled softly, "you'll be fine. They won't ask to see anything you aren't capable of."

Rey took a deep breath and nodded. "Can you tell me what it's like? Ben said it might take four or five hours."

"Not really," the girl frowned sympathetically. "I can tell you that the different belt levels get called up in groups to show the things they're tested on, so sometimes you'll be sitting down and watching other people test. As a white belt, you almost definitely won't be doing anything alone. Other that that," she shrugged, "I can't really say. Each promotion is different. You kind of just have to get through it and experience it for yourself."

She put her hand on Rey's knee and smiled again. "You have nothing to worry about, I promise. And just think," she giggled, "this'll be the last time you ever have to tie that belt. Next time, you'll have a yellow one."

"Thanks," she sighed. "I wish I could just flip a switch and not be nervous."

"Girl," Jess laughed, "I'm telling you, you have  _nothing_  to worry about. If you can find a way to be friends with Ben Solo, you can manage a White Belt promotion."

" _Jess_ ," Rey laughed, "I still don't see why you don't like him!"

"Are you kidding? He's  _terrifying_."

"He is not! He's actually really nice!"

" _Sure_ he is, Rey. You know, I think you just like-"

Master Skywalker interrupted Jess with a knock at the locker room door. "Girls," he called politely through the door, "We'll be starting in five minutes."

"Yes, sir!" they jumped up, responding in unison, both turning a bit red.

Rey took a deep breath and pulled the knot of her belt tight. Now if only the knot in her gut would go away, maybe she might get through this without throwing up.

* * *

Jess was right, mostly. Master Luke asked Ben to lead the group of twenty-six students (only two of whom were White Belts) through a warm-up. It was just lower belts testing - no belt above red was promoting that day, so Rey had been assured that it wouldn't be quite as intense as future promotions would be.

At Master Skywalker's command they all lined up by belt color, with the higher belts in the front. Rey was next to last, standing at the back of the group, which was  _great_ , because it seemed a lot less scary than being in the front row. She glanced over quickly toward the benches that parents were sitting on, and gave a quick smile when Finn waved.

Plutt wasn't there, of course. Rey had made a point not to mention any of her training to him, and at the moment, he was probably under the impression that she'd holed herself away in the basement. She found herself relieved that he didn't keep much of an eye on her.

Ben did, though. She'd thought he would relax a bit after their conversation about Plutt when he'd driven her home a couple weeks earlier, but he hadn't. Instead, he was just more careful about what he asked. Rather than asking outright "Are things okay at home?" he started asking more about Plutt's work and how long she'd been living with him. Rey had answered honestly...well,  _mostly_. Actually, no, that was a lie. She'd lied directly to Ben's face, and that was getting harder and harder to do.

She sighed, and watched the Purple and Blue Belts, who were currently being tested on their most recent Poomse. Her own Poomse was coming along nicely, and she was pretty sure Master Skywalker would ask to see it, but thankfully she didn't need to have it perfected until her Orange Belt promotion. Rey knew she should have kept watching the upper belts, but instead, in her mind, she ran through the things she'd likely be tested on.

Master Skywalker would probably have them run through drills on the two kicks they'd learned -  _Ahp Chagi,_ a front snap kick and Rey's favorite move so far,  _Dollyo Chagi_ , the roundhouse kick. She wasn't very concerned about the kicks. She still couldn't kick with enough force to make her dobok make the wonderful snapping noise she heard come from Master Skywalker or Ben's doboks whenever they kicked, but she was at least steady, and fairly accurate with where her kicks landed.

Rey knew Master Skywalker would also ask to see the three blocks she'd been practicing, which wasn't something she was worried about.

No, Rey wasn't worried about the various stances, kicks, punches, and blocks he's ask her to do. She wasn't really even worried about the board she'd probably have to break. Instead, she was entirely concerned with the philosophical questions Master Skywalker was interspersing throughout the testing. She had no idea what he'd ask, and not for the first time, she found herself cursing her lack of note-taking.

She was too wrapped up in worrying about it to see that the Purple and Blue Belts were sitting down around her, and only perked up when she heard Master Skywalker say, "White Belts, line up across the front."

Rey gulped, and took a deep breath.

* * *

She'd been right about the stances, kicks, punches, and blocks. He'd asked to see all of it, and made a point of calling out combinations of three or four of the moves at a time, in  _Korean_ , of course. Suddenly she was relieved that he'd made a point of only using the Korean terms for each move in the last month and a half. Rey glided across the floor, aiming her kicks, punches, and blocks as commanded, until Master Skywalker finally ordered them to stop and face him.

"Very good, White Belts," he smiled, nodding approvingly. "I can tell you've been practicing. But," his smile turned a bit mischievous, "have you been  _listening_?"

Alarm bells went off in Rey's head. This was  _exactly_  what she'd been afraid of.

"Miss Tico," Master Skywalker called, "What are the five tenets of Taekwondo?"

A quiet voice replied quickly, "Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance," she paused, "Uh...Self Control, and...Indomitable Spirit.  _Sir_."

"Good." He took a minute to scribble something on one of the papers that was stacked on the table that sat at the front of the room. Ben was sitting behind it, watching, and helping Master Skywalker grade the testing. "Now, can you tell me which of the five tenets is most important?"

She didn't answer for a minute, then finally said, "I don't know, sir."

He hummed, and glanced over at Rey.

Rey took a deep breath, knowing she was next.

"Miss Kenobi," he smiled fondly. "Same question."

She considered it for a minute, and remembered his habit for asking questions that had no answer. "I think they're equally important, sir," she paused, considering each of the tenets. "But I think each Martial Artist has specific tenets that mean more to them personally."

"Huh," Master Skywalker glanced at her, an eyebrow raised, "that's...an  _unusual_ answer. Which tenets are most important to you?"

Rey found that she didn't really need to think about it. "Perseverance, and Indomitable Spirit, sir."

She noticed Ben smile faintly, but Master Skywalker walked over to stand in front of her, and tilted his head as he looked down at her.

"Dangerous combination, that," he said finally in a gravelly voice, raising an eyebrow. For a brief, miniscule moment within a fraction of a second, Rey realized that Master Skywalker was freaking  _terrifying_. "Those are good qualities to focus on, but there's a reason we include Courtesy, Integrity, and Self Control. Remember, Rey," he said softly, "it's all about balance."

She nodded, and replied quietly, "Yes, sir."

He hummed again, considering her with a twinkle in his eye. "I think we might need to keep an eye on you."

* * *

Rey stood in front of Finn and his grandma, her beaming smile sunny enough to match the yellow of her new belt.

"That was  _so_  cool," Finn gushed, still refusing to let go of the board that was now in two fairly evenly-sized pieces.

Surprisingly, the break had been the easiest part. Master Skywalker had asked some of the higher belts to help hold the boards for her and Rose, and Jess had ended up being partnered with her. They spent a minute or two going over the hammer-fist technique she'd use to break her first board, and Jess gave her a brief pep-talk (" _Don't stop at the board, aim for a foot or two below the board!")_. Before Rey knew it, Master Skywalker gave the command and she went for it, breaking the board on her first try. Thankfully Rose was also successful, and the two girls had smiled widely at each other.

"You know that board's coming home with me, right?" Rey giggled.

"Yeah, yeah," he rolled his eyes, "I know. I just think it's really cool! You looked like such a badass!"

Finn's grandma glared down at him and cleared her throat.

"Sorry Grams," he said quickly, "I just mean, you looked really tough."

Rey smiled widely and laughed. There was something hilarious about seeing Finn's grandma scold him. She was about to ask him if he'd consider taking lessons when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning around, her smile grew as she saw Ben standing behind her.

"Hey Ben, this is my friend Finn, from school, and his grandma."

He greeted them politely, before turning back to Rey. "So, was it as bad as you expected?"

"No," she laughed, "it wasn't bad at all!"

"Told you it was nothing to worry about." If Rey looked closely enough, she could see the small smile on his lips. "Any chance you'd want to go get ice cream? Master Skywalker and I were wondering if you'd want to celebrate."

"Oh." Rey's face fell. "I'm sorry, I'm staying over at Finn's tonight so we can work on our project. I told them I'd get dinner with them on the way home."

"That's okay, maybe next time." He paused, thinking about what she'd said. "Your foster father's okay with you sleeping over there?"

Rey huffed, and answered carelessly before she had a chance to think about it, "I'm sure he won't even notice."

He frowned at that comment, but didn't ask anything else.

"You and Master Skywalker can join us for dinner," she offered, in a rush to change the subject, even as she realized her mistake. Would Finn and his grandmother even be okay with that?

"That's okay," he shook his head, "I'd rather not interrupt. Maybe sometime next week?"

"Okay," Rey was just thankful that he was dropping the subject.

He just gave a short nod, and started walking back toward the table where they'd graded the students. Barely halfway toward the table, he spun back around, remembering something he'd meant to tell her. He walked back quickly and gave her a short-lived, but broad smile.

"Congratulations." He gestured toward the door. "Now get going, next class is on Monday and we've got a lot of work to do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Shit, meet fan.
> 
> I think I explained most of the terms in context, but here are the ones I noticed:
> 
> Sparring - So, there are two types of sparring I've done. The first is without gear, and I've heard it referred to as "Promise Sparring" (as in, "We're not wearing gear, so I promise not to hurt you"). That sort of sparring is usually limited to light taps. The other sort is full-on sparring with gear (generally arm and shin pads, a chest protector and a helmet), and it's pretty much a free-for-all unless you decide to aim for the face or spine. That's pretty frowned upon. In my Dojang people don't usually get gear until Green Belt (or Purple, depending on the person).
> 
> Ahp Chagi - Front Snap Kick. A really basic kick, often the first one taught.
> 
> Dollyo Chagi - Roundhouse Kick. So, this is the one people seem to have more familiarity with (thanks Chuck Norris!) and it's a great kick. Nice and powerful, but it takes a good amount of practice to properly turn your hip, so it's a bit harder than the Ahp Chagi.
> 
> The Five Tenets of Taekwondo: I listed them in context, but basically these are part of the student oath many Dojangs require their students to take. The Tenets are Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self-Control, and Indomitable Spirit. Despite Rey's answer, a student should really attempt to embrace all of them, not just one or two.
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 



	4. Orange Belt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just another reminder that this story is definitely not as fluffy as the other stories I've written. If you're only looking for fluff, you're in the wrong place. There will be fluff, but there's a good deal of angsty, pain-train-ish stuff too.

_Orange represents the growing power of the sun as it warms the earth, preparing it for new growth. An orange belt student feels their mind and body open and develop._

* * *

Somehow, Rey could sense that the shit had  _officially_  hit the fan.

Rose had found Rey and Finn at lunch during their spring semester. Apparently she'd had an earlier lunch in the Fall, which was probably why they'd never run into her before. It had been a month or so since the girls had successfully gotten their Yellow Belts, and Rose was fitting in with Rey and Finn perfectly.

Rey had been laughing away at some silly joke Finn had told them over terrible cafeteria chicken nuggets when Principal Holdo walked up, her stonefaced expression saying nothing and everything at the same time.

She didn't say anything. She didn't need to.

Rey's mind blanked in sudden blind fear. One of the nicest adults she'd ever met stood over her with the kind of expression that made her want to sink into the door.

Principal Holdo gestured for Rey to follow, and it took Rey herself a moment to realize she was already up on her feet.

Finn glanced over at her nervously, "What's going on?"

Unfortunately, Rey had a  _very_  good idea of what was going on, but she didn't explain to Finn or Rose. She just gave them a quick (possibly nauseous) smile and said "I'm sure it's nothing," before grabbing her things and following Principal Holdo.

Neither of them said a thing to each other, all the way to Holdo's office. The few students loitering the halls watched them, their rubbernecking stares following Rey like some voyeuristic executioners. Finally, they arrived at her office, and she held the door open, motioning for Rey to enter and take a seat.

The office was just as vibrant as Principal Holdo's hair, and if Rey weren't trying to keep her cafeteria nuggets down she would have thought the office  _really really cool_. It was a large room, with a long L-shaped glass-top desk in the middle and dark cherry bookcases lining the wall behind it. The bookcases were filled with hundreds of books, and decorated with a dozen or so framed pictures. A few potted succulents sat on top of a small table under one of the big windows that let in enough sun to brighten the room.

The room was warm and inviting, but Rey's blood ran cold when she saw that Master Skywalker and Ben were already waiting for her. They sat in two of the three royal-blue chairs that were in front of the desk, and they both looked concerned. Rey had a feeling Principal Holdo hadn't told them why they were there. Actually,  _Rey_  wasn't even sure why they were there. Surely her infraction was just deserving of a few detentions, right?

Principal Holdo sat calmly at her desk, facing the three of them. She pursed her lips and clasped her hands together over the desk, then stared Rey down.

As if reading her mind, the woman explained, "I would normally have this conversation with a student's parent or guardian," she paused. "However, the number I have for your foster father has been disconnected. It seems that I have no way of reaching him, so I decided to reach out to Luke instead, for reasons we'll discuss."

"So, Rey," she said softly, "Would you like to explain to us why you're here?"

* * *

She knew the minute she saw the error on the algebra homework a few days earlier. It was such a silly mistake, but it was one that she'd also made on every single answer sheet she'd sold. On the homework, her teacher had written "SEE ME" in bold red pen, and Rey had a feeling the teacher was mildly curious about the fact that half her class had all made the same error Rey had a habit of making.

Of course, she absolutely hadn't gone to "SEE ME" in hopes that her teacher would just forget.

Unfortunately, that was around the same time a few other students admitted they'd failed to rewrite the essays she'd sold them.  _But that was part of the deal_ , she'd explained angrily. She would write her essay and sell it to a few people who promised they'd rewrite it in their own words. It's not like they had to be completely different, but she had expected people her own age to not be freaking  _incompetent_  at simple subterfuge. Yeah, some of those guys seemed like they came from some Darwinistically lucky end of the gene pool, but  _come on!_

Again, she really wasn't surprised about the whole "shit hitting the fan" thing. She should have been smarter about it, and the idiots she'd been selling homework to certainly didn't help the situation.

Whatever the reason, and whoever's fault it was, Rey had been caught, and there really was no denying it. So she didn't. She explained everything to Principal Holdo, and winced as she watched the disappointment appear on Master Skywalker's face.

When she finally finished explaining, she looked first to Master Skywalker.

"Oh, Rey," he sighed, running his fingers through his hair, "That's...serious."

"It is," Principal Holdo nodded, "Rey's going to have a small suspension here, and obviously we're going to be keeping a close eye on her work from here on out." She looked over at Luke, "I invited you because I know Rey's been training with you, and I know that ethics are a large part of Taekwondo and Martial Arts in general. When I couldn't reach her guardian, I decided that this information was pertinent to her training with you."

For a brief, vicious second, Rey wished that Principal Holdo was like all the others who didn't  _care_  so much.

While the adults talked, Rey found herself glancing desperately over at Ben, hoping not to see the same disappointment she'd seen on Master Skywalker. She didn't, and breathed a soft sigh of relief. He didn't say anything, or add to the conversation, but he gave her a small, sympathetic smile.

"You're right," Luke nodded. "Normally something like this would be grounds for dismissal."

Rey's stomach dropped. The only reason she'd been doing any of this was so that she could train with Master Skywalker.

"Amilyn," Luke said quietly, watching Rey's silent panic, "could you give us a few minutes?"

Rey didn't see her principal's reaction. She was focusing her eyes on a single loose thread that was coming out of the hem of her sweater, desperately trying not to cry. She felt the woman pass by her, and she heard the door shut.

* * *

She'd been playing with the loose thread for hours, pulling gently at it to see if it would break, or just come undone. Maybe it was only minutes, or seconds, but it felt like hours before Master Skywalker cleared his throat, and said her name softly.

Rey looked up at him, her hazel eyes swimming with unshed tears.

"Like I said to Principal Holdo," he said quietly, barely able to meet her eyes, "something like this is considered extremely disrespectful, and normally it'd be a reason to dismiss-"

"Why'd you do it?" Ben interrupted, not angrily. He sounded more concerned than anything.

"I…I.." she stammered, unsure of how to answer. At this point, it didn't seem like she had much to lose, so she settled for a more truthful answer than she'd been giving them. "I needed money for lessons and I didn't want Plutt to know."

"Plutt?" Master Skywalker asked, frowning deeply. "Your foster father? Why not?"

"I don't think he'd want me learning how to fight," she answered without thinking, and she bit her lip to stop herself from saying anything else that was too close to the truth. "He...he's just really strict," she lied. "He wouldn't want me taking classes. Plus, money's tight, and he wouldn't be able to afford them."

She could tell Ben didn't buy it. In fact, the look on his face was downright  _murderous_. Master Skywalker, on the other hand, gave a short nod and said "Ben, go take a walk."

Anger flashed across the younger man's face. "Sir, I think I should stay."

"I know what you  _think_  you should do right now," he replied in a calm voice. Luke looked up at Ben, who was now standing over him, and said softly, "Go take a walk. Calm down."

Ben huffed, stalked out of the room, and slammed the door behind him. Rey's eyebrow raised as she glanced back at Luke. "We're going to need to work on that," the man grumbled.

He took another look at Rey, and his face grew grim. "Rey, is there anything you need to tell me?"

"No sir," she said quietly, not meeting his eyes.

" _Rey_ ," he pressed. "If there's something more going on, I need to know. I can help. You can trust me. Now, are you  _absolutely sure_  there's nothing you need to tell me?"

She took a deep breath, and told what she hoped would be her last lie to Master Skywalker.

"There's nothing else, sir."

* * *

He'd considered her words for a minute before nodding, and opening the door to call Ben and Principal Holdo back into the office. Ben was still silently fuming, and his hands were in tight fists when he sat down. From Rey's seat, she noticed that he seemed to be doing breathing exercises.

She thought back to the words she'd heard from Master Skywalker just a minute or two earlier.

_I can help._

_You can trust me._

Her heart hurt. The three people in this room had barely known her for half a year, and they'd shown more care for her than any other adult ever had. And how had she repaid them? By cheating, by helping others cheat...by  _lying_. Rey cringed, and felt a few tears finally leave her eyes.

"We came to an agreement," Luke explained to the room, glancing over at Rey. "Rey's going to stop this immediately, of course. It's dishonorable, and she knows now that it's highly disrespectful. For…" he paused, "... _reasons_ , I will not be dismissing her from the Dojang."

Rey perked up, barely believing her ears, and gave Master Skywalker a look of disbelief.

"... _yet_." he continued. "If she  _ever_  does anything like this again, I won't have a choice," he warned. "At the moment, she usually trains with us Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. If Rey wants to keep training with us, she'll have extra lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays. These lessons will focus primarily on ethics, and they  _will_  include homework, likely in the form of essays. The lessons will continue until I feel they are no longer necessary."

She breathed a sigh of relief. Essays aside, Master Skywalker's punishment actually sounded more like a reward. The idea of spending  _more_  time at the Dojang was more appealing than he probably knew.

Principal Holdo crossed her arms and leaned back into her chair, nodding. "And you've agreed to this, Rey?"

"Yes, ma'am," she said quickly. Rey looked over at Luke - Master Luke, her mind told her,  _least you can do is be respectful_  - and gave him a watery but truly sincere smile. "I'm just glad I'm not being dismissed."

"Hmm," Principal Holdo nodded, "that's  _very_ generous of you, Luke. Perhaps Rey can get a jump start on these extra lessons during her three-day suspension. I'm dismissing her from school now, and her suspension starts tomorrow. Rey will still be responsible for any homework that's assigned during those days, and we'll expect her back here on Monday, but she won't be allowed on school grounds for the rest of the week."

"I'm sure we can figure something out," Luke nodded. He turned to Rey, "Why don't you get your things. I need to speak with Amilyn for a few minutes."

She nodded, and stood up to leave. Ben had apparently been about to follow her, because he was standing when she turned back to hear Luke say, "Not you. You stay. I'm sure Rey can get her things herself."

He looked back to Rey and continued, "When you're ready, just wait for us outside this office. This won't take long."

She nodded again, and walked out the door, still overwhelmed by everything that had happened.

* * *

After Luke heard the door close behind her, he shot Ben a disapproving look. "You need to learn to trust that I have things under control. Don't forget, I'm not just your Uncle."

Ben frowned and crossed his arms, but gave a quick, relenting nod.

"Can I ask why you aren't dismissing her?" Holdo asked curiously.

Luke sighed. "That's actually why I wanted to talk to you. We've been noticing a few things and we're both a bit concerned about Rey's home life. Have you ever met her foster father?"

Concern seeped into her voice as she replied quietly, "No, I haven't."

"Has  _anyone_?" Ben asked angrily. "You don't have his phone number, and you've never met him - how can she be enrolled if her guardian barely exists?"

Luke gave him a warning look, and then glanced back at Holdo. "If something's going on with her or at home, I'd like to keep a close eye on her. Obviously kicking her out would make that a lot more difficult."

"Have you told her about your concerns?"

"I've been giving her rides home after class," Ben answered quickly, his voice still a bit angry, "I've asked about him and what he does for work, but I'm pretty sure she's been lying about it."

"The kid is  _not_ a good liar," Luke huffed.

"She's really not," the woman sighed, "She's a good kid, though, despite this. Her grades are almost perfect and most of her teachers have nothing but positive things to say. I'll be paying more attention to her while she's here, and if you have her taking lessons five days a week, you should be able to figure out if anything's going on, right?"

"I think so," Luke nodded. He paused, and added, "I  _hope_  so."

"Okay," Holdo replied. "Well, I have a meeting with the superintendent, and I should leave, but feel free to use my office if you need to. We'll be in touch." She smiled softly at Luke. "Keep an eye on the girl, okay?"

"Of course," he nodded.

After she left, Ben and Luke sat in silence for a few minutes, before Ben finally spoke.

"Uncle Luke, there's something I've been wondering," he mentioned. "How'd Rey get the documents signed?"

Luke just chuckled softly and shook his head. "Well I'm sure Plutt didn't sign them."

"That's what I was thinking," Ben muttered.

After another minute he asked, his voice subdued but far more dangerous, "Do you think she's okay?"

Luke looked over and wished he could still be that perfect teacher in Ben's eyes from all those years ago. There was no point in lying though.

"I don't know, Ben. I wish I did."

* * *

The ride to the Dojang was a quiet one, especially after Luke vetoed every song Ben tried to play. When they arrived, Master Skywalker instructed Rey to sit in the office and work on her homework until class started. Rey found him a little odd. It seemed like he just wanted to pick her up and hug her, but he schooled his face into a stern expression and decided on discipline instead.

It still made her feel warm and fuzzy (like that one time she got to try warm apple cider at Christmas), so she just said "Yes, sir," and got to work.

After about an hour, Ben snuck in and silently placed a strawberry milkshake and a burger from the diner across the street on the desk in front of her, flashing her a quick smile before returning to Master Skywalker's lesson planning session.

Rey returned his smile with a broad one of her own, and returned to her reading when he left. She found it  _considerably_  more enjoyable when it was coupled with a milkshake.

A couple hours later, the food was long gone, and students were starting to trickle in, so Rey jumped up from the desk and put her things away before she left for the locker rooms.

She should have known Rose would be waiting for her. The small girl was waiting outside the locker rooms looking antsy as she bounced on the balls of her feet. The relief and concern on her face sent another shock of shame through Rey as she realized Rose had been worried.

(Because, that's what friends did, right?)

"Rey, where did you go? Finn and I were so worried," she stressed. "You just disappeared with Holdo and didn't come back!"

"I know," Rey admitted, feeling guiltier by the minute as her friend paced in front of the lockers. "I got in trouble, and Holdo couldn't get ahold of my foster father, so she called Master Skywalker."

Rose stopped pacing and turned to face her, aghast. "She called Master Luke? But that's just... _yikes_. That must have been weird. What'd you do?"

She took a deep breath. "I was selling homework and test answers."

"Why on  _earth_  would you do that?"

"I needed money for lessons here," Rey shrugged, "And I knew my foster father wouldn't pay for it, so I figured out a way to do it myself."

Rose huffed quietly. "Well, at least you didn't get kicked out."

"I'm taking extra lessons now," Rey said. She was both anxious and relieved to hear Rose was more interested in that part than the one regarding Unkar. "On  _ethics_. And apparently, there'll be essays."

Rose laughed. "That sounds like Master Skywalker. He'd rather use it as a teaching moment than as a reason to kick you out. I hope he still lets you promote."

"I didn't even think about that," Rey admitted. "I guess we'll see."

* * *

A few weeks of five-day-a-week lessons passed with a breeze.

Master Skywalker had insisted on Rey spending her entire three-day suspension at the Dojang, and continued to let her do homework in the office when she wasn't training. It was supposed to be a punishment, but Rey thought it seemed much more like a blessing. At some point she'd mentioned to him that she wasn't sure how she'd come up with the money for classes, but he just waved her off, and said they'd worry about it when she was old enough and had time to get a job.

In the few weeks that passed, she managed to write over twenty pages worth of essays, which were all read, edited, and graded dutifully by Ben before they were passed to Master Skywalker. Rey guessed he was quite pleased with how she'd been doing, because that Spring, he allowed her to test for (and successfully promote to) her Orange Belt.

Ben still drove her home every night after class, but once she returned to school he also picked her up each afternoon. He'd accurately guessed her method of riding the bus without paying the fare, and scolded her before smirking and promising not to tell Master Luke.

That was something Rey had noticed during the few weeks following her suspension - Ben just couldn't bring himself to truly scold her and mean it. Every error circled on an essay was followed up by two or three positive, but unnecessary, comments. Every difficult workout was followed by helpful feedback. Every harsh lecture was followed by a soft smile.

If that was Ben's idea of balance, Rey approved whole-heartedly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: I seem to have a thing about bookstores.
> 
> No special terms in this one - I won't always describe training and promoting for each level, especially when there's more life-stuff going on.
> 
> Just a quick note - As far as I know, it really wouldn't be unusual for a Master to take more of a personal interest in a student's life, especially if that student was underage and potentially in a bad/unsafe situation. My Master is particularly protective of her students, and they aren't even underage. I've gotten the impression from multiple Dojangs that this is somewhat normal.
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 



	5. Orange Belt/Green Stripe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I thought I was the one who liked writing fluff, and then my husband/beta (thebuildingsnotonfire) came in and made this even fluffier. Go figure.
> 
> Enjoy!

If there was one thing Rey could say for certain about her life, it was that it had somehow become more busy than when she was selling multiple sheets of homework to her classmates. She spent all day at school, then all afternoon and evening at the Dojang until Ben drove her home, usually around 8 PM or so. It gave her just enough time to shower, do a bit of homework, then pass out from exhaustion. By the time Friday rolled around, Finn's grandma would normally pick her and Rose up after training, and then she'd proceed to feed them incredible food and let them sleep over. Rey would wake up refreshed and lighter than sunshine on Saturday, only to eventually (and miserably) realize with great dismay that she had to go home at some point. Normally she could put it off for at least a few hours by claiming she and Finn had homework to do. All in all, she only ended up spending Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday at home. It was still and forever would be too much, but she rarely saw Plutt, so Rey was much happier than she'd been in a long time.

Today was Friday, and right on time, Finn's grandma pulled up in front of the Dojang, just as Rey finished lacing up her sneakers. Finn had mentioned over lunch that she was making enchiladas for dinner and Rey was practically drooling just thinking about them.

"Headed to Finn's?"

She looked up from her shoes to see Ben smiling at her, still in his dobok. "Yeah," she grinned, "Rose and I have been going every Friday."

"I've noticed." Ben did that sagely nod thing that Master Luke occasionally did. "You've been working really hard here, so make sure you take time to relax, and," he shrugged, "I don't know, be a kid. What are your plans for this summer?"

Rey's smile turned brittle. She hadn't considered that, and now the prospect of spending each weekday at home was less than pleasant.

Somehow, Ben read her mind, or at least her expression. "I only ask because Master Luke encourages students to take part in community service," he said, "and I was wondering if you wanted help finding a program to volunteer through. You could stay pretty busy that way."

That was so brilliant, Rey could have hugged him. Except she wouldn't because they were still in the Dojang, and more importantly because she was sweaty and gross.

She had to settle for smiling at him, hoping she could convey her relief without all the reasons for why.

"Thanks," she said, and then noticed Finn and his grandmother waving from the car. "I'm sorry, she's waiting!"

"Of course," he nodded. "Have fun."

* * *

The enchiladas were every bit as amazing as Rey had hoped they'd be. The three of them sat around the small round table that sat at one end of the small kitchen at Finn's house. The kitchen was a sunny yellow, and matched his Gran's personality perfectly. She was an  _angel_  who seemed to adore feeding Rey and Rose proper, home-cooked meals. She had high cheekbones and a laugh that said she'd seen and done more than Rey could ever imagine, along with a treasure trove of sweets that she occasionally withdrew from whenever Finn had friends over.

"How's everything going at school?" she asked the kids, finally taking a seat at the table, her plate piled high with delicious, cheesy goodness.

"Not bad," Finn nodded, and then elbowed Rey, "at least we aren't making any more models."

Rey groaned. The earthquake model they'd made in the fall had turned out to be an absolute disaster. They'd managed to get it to school (carefully), but not ten steps from the table they needed to set it on at the science fair, Rey had tripped. The model went flying (fairly impressively too for something made of plywood), and crashed into a couple of other displays. At least the teacher hadn't laughed when he saw it (unlike everyone else).

At least they'd gotten points for effort (and maybe out of pity too).

"No more models," Rey said, "I'll be thrilled if we never need to make another model."

"I don't know, I think that project sounded fun," Rose piped in. "I would definitely have preferred that. All we do in my science class is read. Our projects are basically just papers. Next week I have a paper due on the scientific method," she laughed. "Can you really say you'd rather write a paper on 'how to write a paper' than build a model?"

"At least you don't have to write a five page essay on  _courtesy_ ," Rey replied dryly. "Honestly, I think Master Luke is going to make me write an individual essay for each tenet." She paused. "Huh. I bet, by the time I'm done with all his essays I'll have basically written a book."

"Too bad nobody would read a book written by an Orange Belt," Rose giggled.

Rey gave her an expression of mock outrage, "I've almost got a Green Stripe! That's gotta count for something!"

"Sure it does," Finn laughed. "Forget Black Belts, Orange with a Green Stripe is the new Black Belt,  _obviously_ ," he mocked.

Rey just laughed, shook her head, and continued to enjoy her amazing food and the even better company.

* * *

The girls let Finn pick the movie, and the three of them ate an outrageous amount of popcorn and howled through the '80s  _Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn_. Originally Rey had been concerned that she hadn't seen the first one, but sometime around the point where the main character's hand became possessed and started trying to kill him, she stopped worrying.

 _Clearly_ this movie would be enjoyable with or without context.

They tried following it up with  _Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness_ , but Finn's Gran happened to come in and she was mildly horrified to see what the three of them were watching, so she sent them to bed with a (intended-to-be-private) mutter of "At least it ain't porn". Finn obviously had his room, and his Gran insisted the girls help themselves to the small guest room that was across the hall from her own bedroom.

Rey was pretty sure that her and Rose were the only ones who ever used it, and they'd even taken to each leaving a set of pajamas there. It was a small room and the queen-sized bed took up most of the floor space, but with a soft off-white carpet, pretty lace curtains, and cozy bedding the color of summer grass, the room was just  _so_  comfortable. Somehow it even smelled comfortable, with the sent of plush down wrapping around her every night she stayed there.

The girls changed and settled into the soft, warm bed before beginning their weekly routine that Rose referred to as  _girl talk_. They didn't get much time together outside of the Dojang or away from Finn, so it was pretty fun to just stay up and talk.

"What do you want to talk about?" Rey whispered.

Rose thought about it for a minute before asking, "What's your room like?"

"I've got the basement," Rey answered honestly. "It's pretty dull, but I've got a bathroom to myself, so I really can't complain much."

"I wish I had my own bathroom," Rose groaned. "I love Paige, but our apartment only has one bathroom and sometimes she takes forever to get ready. I don't whine about it to her though," she sighed. "She's a CNA, and she works really long hours just so she can pay rent and take care of me. She's pretty amazing, actually."

Rey frowned. "What about your parents?"

"Oh," Rose said softly, "Yeah, I guess I don't really talk about it much." She paused, "Uh, they died. Like, two years ago. It was a car accident. Paige had just turned 19, and she sold the house so she'd have money to finish school and still take care of me. I'm really lucky I have her."

A brief few seconds of silence passed as Rey pondered how best to get out of the hole she'd just steered the conversation into.

"I'm sorry," Rey said, lamely.

"Don't be. You know how it is. You lost your parents too, right?"

Rey winced. "Not exactly. I don't know whether or not they're alive. They…" she took a deep breath, "They abandoned me, when I was really young. I don't really remember much about them."

Rose was silent, and Rey felt an uncomfortable tension in the room. She sighed, and rolled over to face the girl next to her. "Want to talk about something else?" she offered, smiling softly. "Maybe something a bit more fun?"

" _Please_ ," Rose nodded, seeming relieved. "Boys?"

"Uh," Rey hesitated, "Okay...sure."

"I have a crush on someone," Rose whispered. Rey could actually see her peach-shaped face blush in the moonlit room. "Promise you won't say anything if I tell you!"

"Of course," Rey laughed, before schooling her face into a more serious expression. It took more effort than Rey expected and she hoped the struggle wasn't obvious. "I would never."

"I think I like Finn," Rose admitted. "But he's such a good friend. I don't think he feels the same way, and I don't want to make things awkward."

Rey wasn't the least bit surprised. "Don't worry," she smiled, "I won't tell him. I promise. If it helps, I know he doesn't have a crush on any other girls. I don't know if he'd tell me if he had one on you, but I think I'd know if he liked anyone in one of our classes."

Rose smiled, and visibly relaxed. "So, what about you? Are there any guys you like?"

Rey thought about it for a minute. She didn't really hang out with many people. She definitely didn't have feelings for Finn, at least not any that went past close friendship, and the more she thought about it...well, the only other guy she hung out with was Ben. He was kind, and he had nice hair and-

' _Nope, don't go there Rey_ ,' a voice that sounded suspiciously like Master Luke resounded in her head. ' _You do not want to open that bag of snakes._ '

Rey blushed, started to say something, blushed some more, realized there was no way she was getting sleep tonight now, and then gave up on sounding like a normal person.

"Uh. Nope."

Then she rolled on to her back, stared up at the ceiling and purposefully did not think about anything related to Taekwondo.

* * *

About a month later, she woke up feeling all sticky, and gross. Hair was plastered to her forehead.

 _Wonderful_.

Normally her basement bedroom stayed cool, but there were some summer nights when her personal corner of Hell got a little more humid and a lot more sucky. Rey sighed, pushing the hair out of her eyes, and debated whether or not she should try to go back to sleep.

It was Sunday, and she had nothing to do. Master Luke and Ben had helped her get signed up for a volunteer program through the hospital that was down the street from the Dojang, but that was only on weekdays. She knew Rose was spending the day with her sister, and Finn was almost certainly being dragged somewhere by his Gran.

It was also her birthday, but it's not like she'd celebrated them much before.

Rey was about to let herself fall back into bed, possibly to get a couple more hours of sleep, but the yelling and the sound of breaking glass changed her mind. Apparently Unkar was in a  _mood_ , and that meant it was time to leave. The sooner, the better.

She took a longer shower than she probably should have, and pulled her hair back into a row of buns before sneaking out the basement door she tended to use whenever she needed to avoid Unkar. Which,  _let's be honest_ , was basically all the time.

With each rundown house she passed, Rey felt more and more lost. It wasn't until she arrived at the bus stop a mile and a half from her starting point that she realized she'd been walking in the direction of the Dojang. She smiled, and decided to catch a bus, and go with her instinct.

The Dojang was open on Sundays, but Master Luke didn't host official classes. Instead, it was just open as a free practice time for any of the seniors. Rey found herself standing in front of the door a couple of hours before the open practice started, debating on whether or not to go in. She could see Ben practicing his forms through the glass door, and he spotted her just as soon as she had decided to walk away.

She could see him smile and wave her in, so she sighed, and walked through the door.

"Hey Rey," he greeted her, "I didn't expect to see you here on a Sunday."

"Sorry," she apologized, "I probably shouldn't have just showed up. I was just…" she hesitated, "I was really bored at home."

"Oh," he tilted his head, frowning down at her as if he thought something was off. "Well, I've got a couple hours before I need to be here. I was going to make a stop at the diner for some lunch. Want to join me?"

She smiled, pleasantly surprised by the turn her day was taking. "That'd be great, if you don't mind."

"Not at all," he said, then looked down at himself. "Just let me go change."

* * *

Maz's diner sat directly across from the Dojang, and Rey was pretty sure that Master Luke and Ben were the business's best customers. It was a neat '50s-style diner, boasting red and white vinyl seats, a jukebox, and waitresses that dressed in retro uniforms. They were always playing some mixture of old classic rock, or ABBA, which didn't jive with the whole theme, but Rey loved it anyway.

The burgers were to die for (especially the veggie burger Rey usually ordered), and the milkshakes probably had more than enough calories to make up for a rough day of training.

In a word, the place was  _perfect_.

They ordered their usual - a veggie burger for Rey, and grilled cheese with a salad for Ben. The only difference in their order was the replacement of root beer floats in place of milkshakes.

Rey really wasn't sure why Ben bothered with the salad when he was just going to steal half her fries anyway. He was  _such_ a fry thief. What's worse, he was the type to dip her fries in a milkshake. It was horrifying.

"So, how's everything at the hospital?"

Rey practically beamed. "It's going really well. I mean, I'm really just filing paperwork, so it should probably seem boring, but everyone's really nice."

"That's great," he nodded. "Don't worry if it does get boring. I'm pretty sure you'll get to do more if you volunteer with them again next summer. Usually they give more interesting stuff to the volunteers who've been there longer."

Just as Rey was about to respond, the waitress sat two beautiful, messy-looking rootbeer floats on the table between them. They seemed to be more ice cream than soda.  _Just the way they should be_.

Ben groaned. "These things are going to kill me, but they're amazing."

Rey took a long sip of hers and nodded in agreement.

"Promotion's next week," he commented. "You ready?"

"I think so." She pursed her lips, and nervously tapped her fingers on the table. "I won't get a new belt this time, right?"

"You won't," he confirmed. "You have to do two promotions as an Orange Belt before you move to Green. So next week you're testing for a green stripe on your belt. Master Luke usually just uses colored electrical tape."

"If it's just a stripe, does that mean it'll be an easier testing?"

Ben smirked. "Do you want it to be?"

Rey took a moment to think about it. "Not really."

Ben nodded, as if confirming something. "If anything they get harder as you go up. The only difference this time if you get a stripe instead of a belt.

The waitress showed up again and placed plates of steaming, delicious-smelling food in front of them. Rey started practically devouring hers. She hadn't had much to eat since breakfast at Finn's the previous morning, and she was  _starving_.

They ate in silence for a minute until Ben spoke up, asking, "So, not that I mind the company, but why'd you stop by today?" He saw a bit of panic cross her face, and added quietly, while stealing a fry, "Tell me the truth."

Rey thought for a minute, and decided a partial truth was better than nothing. "It's my birthday. Finn's busy with his Gran and Rose is spending the day with her sister." She shrugged. "I didn't tell either of them anyway. I didn't want them to feel like they had to hang out with me. And…" she sighed, "I just didn't want to be at home."

He blinked. "It's your birthday? Like, today?"

"Yeah," she nodded.

"Huh," he thought for a minute before looking back up at her. "We have to celebrate. We're getting ice cream."

Rey giggled, and gestured toward the floats. "We already did."

"Proper ice cream," he corrected, "in cones."

"Oh, right," she laughed, " _proper_  ice cream."

"Yes," he grinned. She just smiled at him, basking in the happy moment and trying to ignore how her cheeks burned before she heard the bell above the door behind her. Ben's face fell almost instantly.

"Maz," she heard an older man say in a gruff, but not unfriendly voice, "you got my order ready?"

"It's coming," the woman behind the counter answered. "You bring my boyfriend?"

"Sorry, Maz, I left him at the shop," the man apologized. Rey was thoroughly confused, because Ben's eyes hadn't left the man and the expression on his face was growing darker by the minute.

While waiting for his order, the older man leaned his back against the counter, and at some point, his eyes met Ben's.

Rey could have sworn she heard the jukebox record scratch.

" _Ben?"_  The man asked, almost in disbelief. He left the bar and walked over to their booth. He had an old, weathered jacket and sun-beaten skin, pockmarked with age and wrinkles. Rey was suddenly acutely aware of just how  _not_  relevant she was to the conversation. "I didn't expect to see you here." The man paused. "You've grown up."

And then Ben said, in the kind of cold, harsh voice that she'd never heard from him, "That's what happens when you ship a kid off to live with their Uncle."

The man visibly flinched, and despite the words, Rey couldn't help but feel sorry for him. "Ben, that's not fair, and you know it. I want to be a part of your life. I'm not sure when you started thinking that was a bad thing," the man grumbled.

"You didn't want to be involved before," Ben snapped. "Why now?"

"Order's up!" Maz called from behind the counter.

The man glanced over at her and nodded, then cast a sad look down at Ben. He sighed, and pulled out his wallet, placing a business card on the table next to Ben's plate. "My number's on there, kid," he said quietly. "Call. Just once. That's all I'm asking."

Ben looked like he was considering it for a second, and he gave a single nod before replying, "You should go."

The man nodded, and walked to the counter to pick up his order before leaving. Rey jumped a bit when she heard the door close behind her. She looked up at Ben and struggled to decipher his expression. She could see the conflict in the way he grit his teeth and the way his brow furrowed. It looked like a mix of anger, sadness, and pain.

"Uhh, Ben?" she asked, hoping he didn't snap at her like he'd snapped at the unexpected guest.

He didn't, thankfully. He took one long, calming breath, and ran his fingers through his hair. Rey could practically feel the tension coming off him in waves. "Sorry about that," he finally said. "That was my Dad, and  _no_ , I don't want to talk about it."

* * *

Ben's mood improved dramatically post-ice cream.  _Proper_  ice cream, that is. Tons of questions were buzzing through her mind, but after seeing his relief when they changed the subject, Rey decided to hold off on asking anything.

(It wasn't like she had any room to judge, after all.)

The ice cream shop they'd gone to was just a block from the Dojang, and on the walk back, Rey found herself wondering how on  _earth_  Master Luke and Ben both managed to stay fit with all the wonderful food options that surrounded them.

"Oh, this is perfect," she heard Ben say from a few feet behind her. She looked back and saw that he'd stopped in front of a small bookstore.

She glanced at him curiously and crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for him to explain.

"Yeah," he nodded, "We're doing this. I know  _exactly_ what to get you for a present."

Rey laughed, suddenly nervous and aware of how awkward it sounded. "Present? You don't have to get me a present."

Ben rolled his eyes and opened the door to the shop, gesturing for her to follow. She did, and she continued to follow him until he stopped in front of the Fantasy section.

"Do you like to read?"

She scoffed. "Of course I like to read. Who doesn't?"

"I don't know. Idiots, morons, politicians?" Ben shrugged. "What kind of books? The ones I was thinking of are kind of…" he thought for a minute, "urban fantasy, I guess."

"Honestly, as long as it isn't Shakespeare, I'll probably love it."

"Hey," he looked down at her with a scolding expression, "Don't knock Shakespeare. Some of his stuff is great. Anyway," he turned back to the shelf, looking for a specific author, "I know what I have in mind, and I also know that Uncle Luke would kill me if I let you leave a bookstore without at least one Terry Pratchett book."

"You really don't have to do this," Rey tried explaining, "it's just a birthday."

"Right," he nodded, "it's a birthday. And people get presents on their birthday."

"I don't," she shrugged.

He frowned, but didn't address it further except to say, "Well, you do today."

"Ben, you already paid for lunch  _and_ ice cream."

He just rolled his eyes and ignored her protests. To be fair, she didn't try very hard.

* * *

Ben insisted on leaving the shop with no fewer than five books, all for Rey. Two were ones he said Master Luke would approve of - books from the Discworld series. The other three were Ben's recommendation, and they were the first three books in his favorite series.

"So, what are these Dresden books about?" she asked on the walk back to the Dojang.

Ben gave her a wide smile she didn't usually see on him, and she decided she wanted to see it a lot more often. "They're about Harry Dresden, a wizard who works as a PI in Chicago. He ends up in a  _lot_ of ridiculous situations. Some Dresden fans say that the first couple of books aren't as great as the rest, but you should at least give them a shot."

"Huh. That actually sounds pretty cool," Rey commented.

"He's a great character," he nodded. "It seems like he's always fighting this inner darkness he feels, and sometimes he ends up in situations where he just…" Ben shrugged, "where he needs to let the darkness win. Sometimes it's his only choice, but it's a constant battle for him."

Rey felt like what he'd just said was important. Like he was trying to tell her something there, but she just wasn't sure what. She glanced down at the books in her hands. Maybe if she read them she'd find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Sparring.
> 
> No Taekwondo terms here. I think I mentioned it before, but I won't always discuss a promotion or the training that happens in each chapter because a lot of other things are going on and I want to touch on other storylines. I'll at least mention when a promotion has happened (or is happening soon), and when we start getting to higher belts it might be more of a focus.
> 
> As far as the belt/stripe thing - there are some belts you keep for more than one promotion, and we'll see more like this in future chapters. Sometimes it depends on the Dojang, but it's pretty normal to have two promotions as an Orange Belt. So, after this chapter Rey would have an Orange Belt with a small green stripe of tape on one of the ends, indicating that she's successfully promoted as an orange belt once, and she'll be testing for her Green Belt next. 
> 
> Also, if you haven't read any of Terry Pratchett's books, or the Dresden files, I'd highly recommend them.
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 



	6. Green Belt, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rey finally gets to spar, and I'm posting sooner than I expected! The Green Belt chapter ended up being considerably longer than planned thanks to a surprisingly long sparring scene, so the second part will be up in the next few days.
> 
> If you like the sparring scene, thank my beta/husband (thebuildingsnotonfire) because he's WAY better at action/fight scenes than I am. What on earth would I do without this guy?

_Green signifies the growth of a seed as it sprouts, reaching toward the sun, growing into a plant. A green belt learns to strengthen and refine their techniques._

* * *

Much to Rey's relief, September came around like a skulking cat, quiet and resentful, and with it, so did the school year. Volunteering at the hospital had been fun, but her shifts were always a bit later in the day, and unless she'd felt like hanging around the hospital with nothing to do, it meant spending mornings at home. A new school year meant rising early (often before Unkar) and getting home late after Taekwondo, which she still had five nights a week.

Master Luke took ethics  _very_ seriously.

For some reason, Rey didn't mind.

She plopped down at their usual table in the cafeteria and picked at a sad excuse for a chicken salad sandwich while she waited for Finn and Rose to get out of math. It seemed that this was  _her_  year to be left out of classes with them, but at least they'd all agreed to take Spanish together. One class was better than none, she guessed.

"Hey," Finn said, smiling. He sat down across from Rey, setting an obnoxiously bright orange tray in front of him. "How was AP World?"

Rey groaned in response.

"That bad?"

She nodded, and reluctantly nibbled at the sandwich in front of her. Since when had she gotten picky about food?  _Oh, right_ , probably after the tenth or so diner meal she'd shared with Ben over the summer. She'd never eaten so well in her life.

"Where's Rose?" she asked.

All of the sudden, Finn wouldn't make eye contact with her, and he frowned. "She, uh. She's talking with one of the teachers."

"Okay…" Rey said questioningly, "So why are you being so weird?"

"I'm not being weird," he replied quickly.

(He was definitely being weird.)

Rey frowned at him for a minute and stared at him like she'd seen Master Luke do sometimes.  _Nope. No mind reading powers yet._ She sighed and rolled her eyes, deciding to wait and ask Rose herself.

Rose appeared just a few minutes later, sporting a flattering, bob-style cut she'd gotten over the summer. She took a seat next to Rey and pulled out a dark purple lunchbox before glancing between her two friends who were still sitting in awkward silence.

"Uh, what's going on?"

Rey pointedly stared at Finn, "Finn's being weird and he won't tell me why."

She watched as Rose and Finn exchanged a  _look_.

Finn cleared his throat and told Rose, "Rey was just asking me where you were."

"Oh," the girl blinked. " _Oh_. You didn't tell her?"

 _That_  got Rey's attention. "Tell me what?" she asked suspiciously. "Would one of you just tell me what's going on?"

Rose sighed and nodded. "It's not a big deal, I promise." She gave Rey a soft smile. "You know I really love being in Taekwondo, but over the summer, Finn and I ran into Mr. Hardy at the library and we started talking, and he mentioned that he wanted to start a robotics club. Finn's joining and I really want to join too," she paused, "but it conflicts with Taekwondo."

Panic. This feeling was panic. Rey was familiar with panic and that was probably the only reason her chicken salad didn't get a repeat performance. If Rose quit Taekwondo, Rey would be the only one at their level. That meant learning new things...alone. Promoting...alone.

She'd be  _alone_.

Rey swallowed hard, and pushed the feelings aside. She asked, in a voice she hoped wasn't shaky, "So, what are you going to do?"

Rose glanced over at Finn, who nodded as if to say  _just tell her_. "I already talked to Master Luke. I really do like Taekwondo, but I don't know," she thought about it for a minute, "my heart just isn't in it. Not like yours is. Honestly if I had to be there five days a week like you do I think I'd go nuts. Lessons there are fun, but I really want to do robotics and it could even be what I end up studying in college."

Rey's stomach dropped, but she just plastered on a smile and nodded. "It sounds like fun."

"I think it will be," Rose smiled softly, "but you know we're still going to hang out all the time, right?"

"Friday night sleepovers?" Finn grinned. They'd managed to make it a tradition, and terrible horror movies had become part of it, much to his Gran's dismay.

A bit of a smile touched Rey's lips, but it didn't touch her eyes. "Of course," she said quietly.

Relief flooded her when the bell rang, and she had a reason to say a quick goodbye before excusing herself to her next class. Deep down, she knew it wasn't fair to be upset. It was selfish, but she couldn't shake the feeling that Rose was leaving her.

* * *

The weather was unseasonably warm for September, which was probably why Ben had the windows rolled down when he picked her up. She settled into the passenger's seat wordlessly, still caught up in her internal battle between being upset about the situation with Rose, and feeling bad about being upset.

Ben must have noticed, because he frowned and didn't start the car. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Rey spent a minute or two debating whether or not to tell him, and then realized her mouth was already yapping without checking in with her brain. "Rose quit Taekwondo."

"Oh, right," he said, "Uncle Luke mentioned that this morning."

"I know I shouldn't be upset, but now I'm going to be the only person testing for Green Belt, and I won't have anyone training with me at my level, and-" she took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. "I think I'm just nervous."

Ben nodded. "I understand, I had to test for my Black Belt alone and I was a nervous wreck."

A laugh slipped through her lips. "Nervous?  _You?_ "

"Yes," he admitted, a touch glib. Rey swore she saw a tint of red creep up his neck. "But Master Luke usually has seniors do more of their testing independently. If you plan on training for long enough to get a Black Belt, it might be a good thing if you start testing alone this early."

"It's not just that," Rey grumbled, but didn't offer any additional information.

He looked over at her and studied her expression for a moment. "Is it because you won't see her as much?"

Rey crossed her arms and sunk further into the seat. At some point in the last year she'd promised herself she'd stop lying to Ben. Of course, she'd left room in that promise for lying by omission, because there was  _no way on earth_ she was going to tell him about Unkar anytime soon, but still. She'd at least promised to lie to him  _less_.

She sighed, and kept her promise. "I'm worried we won't stay friends. We only have one class in common, and her and Finn are hanging out more without me since they have a bunch of the same classes and they'll probably be working on homework together after school. I'm not used to having friends," she admitted, "and-"

"And now that you have them, you don't want to lose them?" Ben interrupted.

"Yeah, basically."

Ben was quiet for a minute. "I can't claim to have have a lot of experience with friends, but I don't think you have anything to worry about. You and Rose seem to have a solid friendship. I don't think she'd pull away like that."

"You're probably right," Rey said. "But still, now that's she's quit, I'm the only one at my level. Maybe it's silly, but...I guess I kind of feel alone."

"Hey, I'm the only one in the Dojang at my level, too. I know what it's like to test on your own. It's tough, but it makes you better."

He smiled warmly, "Besides, you're not alone."

It didn't make her feel better, because Rey knew that she was still being selfish (and damned if she wasn't always going to be a little bit), but it did soften the sting. His smile helped.

"Neither are you."

* * *

Master Luke had already let the students know to bring t-shirts or tank-tops to wear in lieu of their usual dobok tops since the AC in the Dojang had stopped working. If it hadn't been for the open door and large fans in each corner, Rey might have passed out from the suffocating heat in the building.

She'd opted out of the t-shirt/tank-top option, and wore her full dobok. The dark bruise on her upper arm wouldn't have been fully covered by t-shirt sleeves, and she didn't feel like explaining how she'd gotten it, least of all to Master Luke or Ben. It was already a hassle to find peace and quiet to change in the locker rooms as it was.

Wiping the sweat from her brow, Rey turned to face Jess, who was now a Red Belt. Master Luke had paired them for Rey's first attempt at sparring, taking a minute to explain that Jess was excellent at controlling herself during promise sparring, and he was confident that Rey would not be hurt.

It was just the three of them in the sectioned area. Master Luke had long ago designated a proper ring boundary in the floor with some of the endless supply of masking tape he always had on hand. The ring was huge, eighteen feet by eighteen feet, surrounding her and Jess. They were positioned in the center, with Master Luke standing in between them, giving them a few minutes to warm up.

Jess was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, leaping acrobatically and performing kicks that Rey knew were impractical but still really impressive. Rey was stretching, cognizant of just how cold she was now in the miserable heat of the Dojang, wondering how to get this over as fast as possible. Master Luke said he was going to start Rey off easy, with a full-minute round, and they would see from there.

Which meant she was going to be trying as hard as possible not to fail for a full minute. Under everyone's attention. While fighting Jess. Who just performed three backflips on the floor.

Was she going to have to do that?! Is that what sparring was? Rey could easily imagine herself trying something similar and flopping like a styrofoam noodle.

"Alright girls, line up please," Master Luke said, entirely too cheerfully for Rey's taste. Did he not see the crisis she was having right here? Rey met has gaze and realized he did.

He just found it funny.

Rey briefly wished she was sparring him instead of Jess, so she could show him exactly what was funny. Then, her sanity came in and reminded her she really  _didn't._

"Charyut!"

Practically on instinct at this point, Rey straightened and stood at attention, arms at her sides, ready and waiting for a natural disaster to come and distract her Master from this sideshow attraction.

"Kyungnet."

Rey bowed, not meeting Jess' stare. The two of them were friendly in the Dojang, and they'd even joked about things together (mainly how Ben kept such nice hair without apparently trying), but that didn't change the fact that Jess looked like she'd just found a new toy. There was always a possibility of getting hurt in the Dojang, Rey wasn't naive enough to pretend otherwise, but she'd thought that whenever her first spar came she wouldn't be up against someone who could triple hurricane kick like an action-movie miniboss, and more something like, say, a grade schooler.

(Not that she wanted to face a grade schooler. Those things could  _bite._ )

"Junbi."

Oh, look, it was starting time. Rey stared at Jess, and Jess grinned.

"Shiiijak!"

Master Luke lept away, and with him went whatever chance of stopping this madness she had.

Rey didn't know what to do with a promise spar, only that she and Jess were forbidden from actually  _touching_  each other (she didn't understand that part much either), but it seemed Jess had no problems teaching her. The other girl came in fast, far faster than Rey had ever seen her move before. She stomped on the floor of the Dojang floor hard, and Rey took a step back, her stance turning sloppy instantly. Jess let out a loud, resounding "kihap" and whatever other rational thought Rey had fled at the sound of it.

Rey jumped back lightly, eyes hyperfocusing on Jess legs, but too late, there they were, barely an inch from her gut, pulling back with a perfect snap. The rush of air and the snap of her dobok was all she needed to know just how fast and hard that kick had come in.

Jess didn't let up, immediately switching forward and bringing her leg up in what Rey clinically recognized as a front-snap kick. Once again, she stopped barely an inch from Rey's chest, right between her guard, and wow, this was just going  _fantastic_  wasn't it?

Not wanting to just let the other girl roll over her, Rey retaliated, mindful to keep her arms up. Twisting to the side, lunging, Rey extended her own kick to the other girl's midsection, but Jess didn't stay still, no she moved  _forward_ , bypassing with ease, and meeting Rey's own frantic stare with a smirk.

"I want to hear you when you kick, Rey!" Master Luke said from on high, probably another world, judging by how far his voice sounded right now.

Rey swallowed and broke off from Jess, trying to put space in between the two of them. This wasn't a real fight, Rey knew that, she knew it in her gut. Real fights were ugly and painful, and something Rey had gotten into a lot of when she was younger, but  _dammit this was pissing her off._

How long had it been? Surely half at least? Rey desperately checked the large timer clock on the side of the dojang, and swore several expletives in her head as she realized she wasn't even at the fifteen second mark.

"Come on, Rey," Jess said, coming in close and not-delivering a series of hookshots and roundhouses, all with one leg and dodging Rey's own weak counterattacks with ease, "this is a spar. Make some noise."

The girl backed away suddenly, brought her left leg up, and slammed the heel down in front of her again, the rush of air in front of her face rattling Rey even further.

Rey leapt at the opening. Jess had a weak left guard, and this latest move was just posturing, trying to provoke her. She feinted a step to the right, saw Jess take notice of it, and immediately switched, hopping with her back leg and aiming for the perfect sweet spot between Jess' ribs.

Jess' hands immediately came down, pushing her foot away.

"I can't hear you, Rey!" Master Luke called, and Rey hated him, just a little bit, then and there.

"Kick like you mean it!" Jess said, her smirking face starting to settle into something like annoyance. "Stop playing around!"

"I'm not!" Rey shouted, trying that same push trick Jess just did, but failing to stop the subsonic strike from sending another  _whoosh_  past her face.

"Like hell!"

"Girls! Language!"

"Try harder!" Jess dodged another kick, almost disparagingly, "Come on! Is that all you got?"

"Yes!" Rey swore back, angrily, trying not to let tears show, because dammit, this was supposed to be  _Rose_  she was sparring. Rose, who started with Rey, and who left Rey in this situation. Rose, who Rey was really just worried she was going to lose despite all her and Finn's assurances.

Jess tsked, audibly. "Do you even want to be here?"

Rey threw a weak kick in retaliation, which again, Jess dodged.

"Well?" Jess stopped moving forward, and took a regular guard stance, "Come on. Show me."

Sweat coated her skin, and her face burned with shame and anger and a myriad of other things Rey didn't want to know the names of. She had liked Jess before. Now she just thought she was a bitch.

Jess took a breath and then, stomped forward again. "Show me!"

Later on, Rey would realize it was something like a snap. Similar to when she'd broken a wrist when she was ten. There was a brief, beautiful second of wonder at the sudden change, followed by a pain, a healthy kind of pain that tells you you are still alive, regardless of whatever bad shit you have going on in your life. There's a rush of blood, of relief, of exuberance to finally being able to  _do_  something.

She screamed, nearly tearing her throat with her uncontrolled anger as she stomped on the floor just like Jess, and then leapt forward, aiming a high roundhouse that she had no business trying, let alone trying in a spar, but it wasn't like she didn't watch the seniors whenever she got a chance to.

Rey knew Taekwondo, not as well as Master Luke, not even as well as Jess, but Rey knew she loved it. She loved Taekwondo more than she liked Jess (which really was not much at the moment) and she was going to  _prove_  it.

Jess blocked it, of course (the bitch).

The older girl looked impressed though, and almost smiled at Rey, and Rey decided she'd take it, because holy  _hell_  her foot hurt.

"Kuman!" Master Luke calls from the sidelines, bringing Rey and Jess back from the pits of whatever desolate planet they'd been on.

Both Rey and Jess were breathing hard, staring at each other, before Rey started laughing. Well, more like snorting. Her heart made her whole body tremble with every beat and something bubbly and euphoric was threatening to escape her throat, even as she took up her starting position, which it turned out was pretty far away. Whoops.

Master Luke was there, looking resigned and annoyed and maybe even a little amused, unless Rey's adrenaline-fueled mind was playing tricks on her (which was a distinct possibility). He looked between both she and Jess, muttered something unintelligible to himself, and shook his head. "Kyungnet."

Rey bowed, and this time she did not look away from Jess' challenging stare, instead meeting it with defiance and maybe a little bit of humor (what the hell was her brain on right now).

They bowed to Master Luke, who looked between the two of them, and then said, "I swear to God, if I had known how much trouble teenagers would be I never would have started teaching them."

Rey and Jess looked at each other, uncertain on how to react.

"Both of you need to work on stuff, but considering I'm not driving one of you to the hospital I'll consider it a successful spar. For now."

It better have been. Rey's head felt like she'd been holding her breath underwater for ten minutes. She could practically feel her brain pounding behind her skull.

Master Luke shook his head again, more and more like the grumbling-old-man stereotype his beard made him seem like.

"Great job," Master Luke said finally, rolling his eyes at their smiles. "Go get some water and we'll cool down with some work on your forms."

Rey shuffled over to where her water bottle laid on a bench and guzzled a good amount of it before taking a seat to catch her breath.

Ben had taken a break for water too, and he stood a few feet away, frowning down at her. "No t-shirt?"

His was black,  _of course_. Rey wasn't entirely sure she'd ever seen him wear an actual color other than black, with the exception of his white dobok. She shook her head and drank some more of her water.

"Why not?" his head tilted, confused by why she'd apparently chosen to suffer in the heavy, long-sleeved dobok top. "Aren't you hot?"

She shrugged. "It's fine."

Ben's eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything.

_So much for lying less._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Rey tests for her Green Belt, and unpacks some boxes.
> 
> Taekwondo Terms! Most of these were in the first chapter but I thought it'd be helpful to paste them in again.
> 
> Charyut - Attention (a stance, feet together, standing straight, arms at your sides)  
> Kyungnet - Bow  
> Junbi - Starting stance (in sparring, it'd be bouncing on the balls of your feet, fists up)  
> Sijak - Begin/Start  
> Kuman - End fight
> 
> I'm pretty sure I put all the kick names into English. Just a quick note on "Kihap" (sounds like key-ahp) - usually whenever a Taekwondoian moves into a starting stance, punches, kicks, etc, they give a shout. I think it's literally translated to "spirited yell", and basically it's used to gather and focus spiritual energy. The fact that Rey was fairly quiet about hers (at least for a while) would have been interpreted as her not really putting heart into her actions.
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 



	7. Green Belt, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little fluff, and a lot of serious stuff. I've had some questions on the other site where I'm posting this, and I just wanted to confirm that there are usually four promotions each year. So at this point, Rey's gone from White to Green in a year (Promotions: Yellow, Orange, Orange/Stripe, Green). That's pretty standard for a student, especially one who trains as much as Rey. Promotions are never guaranteed - they are completely up to a Master's discretion. If a Master decides a student needs more training before promotion it's entirely their right to hold a student back from promoting.
> 
> If anyone has any clarifying questions, I'm happy to answer them! I'm trying to make sure I explain things in context, but I'm bound to miss something at some point, so ask away :)
> 
> Also, you may have noticed I've added thebuildingsnotonfire as a co-writer! He's awesome and he's been amazing at adding detail to this fic. He wrote the sparring scene in the last chapter and I'll definitely be getting his help for more of the action scenes in the future. He's also filled in some of Rey's inner thoughts and added fluff, so "Beta" just didn't seem accurate anymore.

Master Luke didn't keep Rey and Jess in class much longer after the spar. They stayed just long enough to run through their forms as a cool-down before stretching. He stayed behind to work with Jess on a form Rey wouldn't learn for another year and he instructed Rey to bow out and change up for the night.

"Ben, feed the kid before you take her home," she heard Master Luke say on her way to the locker rooms. "She looks like she's about to pass out."

Rey grinned as she walked into the locker room to change up. And if there was a little spring in her step, well, no one was there to question why.

* * *

"Long sleeves again?" Ben frowned, as they walked into Maz's diner. "You aren't uncomfortable? It's really humid out."

Rey glanced down at her long-sleeved dark gray shirt. He had a point, it was very humid, and she was definitely uncomfortable. She could feel herself melt in the sweltering heat, and if she had any presence of mind to feel embarrassed about her current look, she would have locked herself in an (air-conditioned) closet.

The logical, rational, and not at all instinctual part of her reminded her that she'd be much more uncomfortable if Ben saw the mark on her arm - the one that was the size of a hand, in a multitude of hues, none of which had any place on her skin.

So she just shrugged.

Rey had learned this in the last few years, when she realized strangers sometimes cared enough to cause trouble, but never enough to follow through; if she got defensive and told someone to stop asking questions, they only asked more, but if she shrugged and pretended she didn't know why they would ask, they usually stopped.

Ben handled it differently, though. It's like he saw through her shrug, and knew she was hiding something. Rather than the subject change she'd been hoping for, she saw annoyance cross his face before he relaxed a bit, settling a bit further in the booth across from her.

"Rey," he prodded, "I know something's going on. I don't know what it is, and I  _really_ don't like that you aren't telling me. You're going to have to talk about it eventually."

"I will," she snapped.  _Lie._ She saw him ready to argue and decided to amend it. "Eventually."  _Another lie._

Wow, she really was just stacking them up at this point.

He considered her carefully before nodding. "Okay, fine," he sighed, "I guess I'll be…" the corner of his lips twitched a bit as he muttered the word - " _patient_."

A giggle bubbled up her throat and slipped through her lips. "Sorry, but  _Ben Solo_ , patient?"

"Shut up, kid," he grumbled, "or I'll eat all your fries."

"You already do," she replied dryly, an eyebrow raised. He had the good sense to look mildly ashamed, until she added, "Fight me for them?"

His lips curled into a devilish smirk, "Fight  _you_? You won't be a Green Belt for another three weeks." He chuckled, "And you just had your first spar. That's hardly a fair fight."

Ben wasn't wrong, she knew that logically. She'd seen him fight before and it was downright  _terrifying_. Ben moved like fire and hit like an avalanche, and he made everyone else look like a novice without even trying. Master Luke regularly had to stop him and whoever had the bad luck of being paired with him before someone got hurt. Not to mention the fact that he was at least a foot taller than she was. Master Luke would  _never_  put them together during sparring, but for some reason she longed for the day she could best him in a match.

For now, that just wasn't going to happen, so Rey just sighed and rolled her eyes, relinquishing the fries. She hadn't really wanted them anyway.

Ben laughed and shook his head. "Split them? Next time we'll order more."

Rey rolled her eyes, her smile unbidden.

* * *

The promotion had gone fairly well so far. She'd performed Taegeuk Sam Jang, her third, and most recently learned poomse. Unfortunately Master Luke had also asked to see her perform Taegeuk Il Jang and Taegeuk Yi Jang, her first two poomse, alone. They may have only taken a minute or two each to perform, but Rey was silently simutaneously cursing and missing Rose the whole time.

Hopefully Ben would prove to be right - hopefully testing alone would be helpful in the future, because it was  _miserable_.

Master Luke had decided to test her on sparring, too.  _Joy_.

Her gear hadn't come in yet, so for now it was Promise Sparring. Rey was just relieved she hadn't been paired with Jess.

Instead, she'd been paired with Cal, a Purple Belt. He seemed nice enough, but they didn't tend to practice together, so she hadn't sparred with him before. He had blond hair cut into a short, almost militaristic style, and he was probably about her age, though she hadn't seen him around school. Rey just hoped he'd be less of a hassle than Jess had been.

Sparring was  _not_ her favorite, but at least it had ended quickly. Cal had seemed happy to just trade kicks with her, and Rey was more than happy to comply.

Thankfully, after sparring Master Luke moved on to something Rey  _loved_  - self-defense techniques. Of course, most of what she'd been learning was technically self-defense, but after her first Promotion, Master Luke had started teaching her moves to get out of certain situations.

The first move she'd learned was how to escape from a straightforward choke, and then she had moved on to learning escapes from various wrist grabs.

The most recent technique she'd learned was her  _favorite_. It was an escape from a pony-tail grab, and sure, it hurt like  _hell_  if her "attacker" did it properly, but it was the first technique that included getting a bit of retribution on her would-be attacker. Rey certainly didn't tell Master Luke that, but after learning a few techniques that just involved escaping, it was nice to learn something that involved a bit of fighting back.

"Miss Kenobi," Master Luke addressed her, "who have you practiced the pony-tail grab with?"

"Jess, and Cal, sir."

He thought for a minute. "Okay, Miss Pava, try it on Rey."

Rey cringed, hoping Jess wouldn't go too hard on her. The girl had been much nicer since their experience sparring together, and she hoped that would translate into this exercise.

It didn't.

Rey winced as the girl grabbed her ponytail (she  _really_  needed to just chop off her hair at some point) and pulled, forcing Rey's head backward at a sharp angle. She stumbled back, as expected, and reached both hands back over her head, finding the palm of the hand Jess was using to assault her.

Digging both thumbs into the girl's palm, Rey grasped hard and quickly twisted her arms together over her head, turning a bit to the side to face Jess. She twisted the girl's wrist until it was in a satisfactory joint-lock, and let go as soon as the girl tapped her other hand against the thigh of her Dobok.

Jess shook out her wrist a bit, but gave Rey a quick smile. "Nice, you're getting better. Next time just twist a bit faster and I think it'll be almost perfect."

"Thanks," Rey whispered, returning the girl's smile before turning back to face Master Luke.

"Not bad, kid. But…" he paused, considering the girls, "It's not a realistic example, though. If you run into someone in an alleyway, it probably won't be another girl, and your attacker probably won't be so close to you in size. I'd like to see how you both do in a more realistic situation. I think it would be better preparation for you, just in case you ever find yourself in this situation."

Rey fidgeted nervously. Jess had been harsh enough, she thought.

"Ben, grab the front of Jess's dobok with both arms, bent elbow," Master Luke ordered. "Jess, you should know two joint locks from this position. Show me one."

Jess took a deep breath and grabbed one of Ben's hands. Rey wasn't familiar with the joint lock she was using (she probably wouldn't learn it for another Promotion or two), but she saw Jess twist his palm away from her, twisting and pushing his hand and wrist away until he tapped out.

"Not bad," Ben frowned, "but dig your thumbs in more next time. The point of a joint lock is to immobilize someone with as little effort as possible, but don't go so lightly that they can throw you off." He smirked. "Don't worry, I can take it."

"Okay," Master Luke nodded, "Not bad, Jess. Now, Rey, which techniques have you learned?"

"I've learned how to escape from straightforward chokes, four wrist grab releases, and the pony-tail grab, sir."

Master Luke considered her for a minute. "I've seen the choke escapes and wrist grab releases, and you're very good with those. Keep practicing them, of course, but I don't need to see them today." He turned back to his nephew, "Ok Ben, grab her ponytail."

Rey blinked. Jess had been bad enough, hadn't she? Of course, she knew Ben wouldn't hurt her any more than necessary, but this just seemed like a terrible idea.

Ben noticed that she'd gone pale, and said softly behind her, "Hey, don't worry kid, you've got this. You just did this with Jess and you can do it again."

Well sure, she'd done it against someone maybe an inch taller than her, probably with the same amount of muscle. She hadn't been facing someone like  _Ben_.

"Remember, Rey," Master Luke said, "if this ever happens in real-life, your attacker will probably be closer to Ben's build, and they probably won't care whether or not they hurt you. Don't go easy on Ben. He'll tap out when he needs to. Whenever you're ready, Ben."

The pain started almost immediately, giving Rey little time to prepare. She instinctively reached back to grab his hand, but his hand was considerably bigger than Jess's had been, and he was gripping harder, making it more difficult for her to press thumbs into his palm. She winced, decided to trust that he'd tap out if necessary, and dug her thumbnails in as hard as she could, then used nearly all her strength to twist her arms up and over, pivoting back to twist his wrist into the joint-lock she was quickly becoming used to.

Rey pushed and twisted until Ben gasped, and tapped his leg. She let go immediately.

Master Luke gave the two of them a second to recover, and he gently lifted Ben's wrist and looked it over critically.

"Ben, how was that?" Master Luke asked, and released the wrist, "Did she do alright?"

"Yeah," he nodded, still rubbing at his wrist. He stared down at her, a bit of a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. "Perfect."

* * *

Rey had never had trouble with breaks before. She'd always cut cleanly through the board someone held for her, and so far she'd consistently managed it on her first attempt, which was probably why she found herself so upset after her third failed attempt.

Master Luke always saved breaks for last, so she could at least take comfort in knowing testing was almost over, after nearly six hours. The problem was, she still had to break the damned board.

He'd assigned a reverse knife hand strike for her break. Rey preferred upper body techniques to kicks for breaks, so at first she'd been relieved.

Then, she didn't break it on the first shot, and her hand  _fucking hurt_.

Sure, there'd always been a bit of a sting when she put her hand through a board, and she'd heard others say that it hurt more if you didn't break successfully, but she hadn't realized how true that was until it happened.

Fucking  _ouch_.

After her third unsuccessful attempt, tears started welling up in her eyes, and Master Luke stopped her from trying again.

"Ben, take Rey aside. Figure out what's wrong and help her fix it."

Master Luke moved on to work with the others on their breaks, and she shuffled over to the corner Ben was walking toward.

"Hurts, huh?"

She nodded, rubbing at the side of her palm. It was the easiest thing to focus on, beyond the near overwhelming knowledge that everyone had just seen her mess up the same break three times in a row. Her pride was somewhere in a corner, luckily, otherwise this would have hurt a whole hell of a lot more.

"We'll get you ice after, but you've got to get through this break," he said, taking the board from her hands. He inspected it for knots, and any other reason it may be tougher to break, but failed to see a problem with it. "Okay, show me your knife hand."

Rey kept her palm flat, and curled her fingertips tightly toward her palm, tensing the muscle at the side of her palm opposite her thumb. It wasn't a traditional knife hand - it was the knife hand they used during breaking to prevent potential broken fingers.

Ben inspected her hand, "Hmm, okay, that looks fine." He paused, felt at the side of her palm that had been making failed contact with the board, and frowned. "You're starting to bruise. I think you can try using this hand one more time, but then I think you'll need to switch."

"Break with my non-dominant?" Rey asked nervously.

"It's not ideal," he admitted. "So let's try to get this right, okay?"

She nodded, and swallowed hard.

"So it's not the board, and not your knife hand. Let's see your technique," he asked. "You're probably not turning your hips enough."

Rey frowned. "Why would I turn my hips? It's an upper body technique."

"Don't let Master Luke hear you say that," Ben chuckled, looking over to where the promotion was still going on, "The only other upper body technique you've used is hammerfist, right?" He waited for Rey's nod before continuing, "Right, well, that's the easiest upper body break, so you might have been successful even if you didn't use your whole body. This one's different. You need to pivot so far that your back heel comes off the ground. It adds force to your strike."

He demonstrated the technique for her and Rey saw in an instant why she'd failed. Ben gestured for her to try it, and she did as he'd suggested - pivoting her hips as she struck out with the side of her palm, lifting her back heel off the floor.

"Better," he nodded, "you can go even further, though. Remember, you aren't aiming for the surface of the board. You're aiming for a few inches past it."

"Rey," she heard Master Luke call, "ready to try again?"

A bit of fear crossed her face, and Ben gave her a reassuring smile. "You're more than strong enough to break it, you'll be fine. Just throw your whole body behind the strike. It'll break."

She took a deep breath, counted three eternity-lasting seconds, and tried her best to smile back. She walked back to Master Luke, who decided to hold the board for her. He gave her a quick nod, and said, "One shot, kid, it's not going to take you any more than that."

She tensed her hand and pivoted quickly, throwing all her force into the strike.

The board broke cleanly in half.

* * *

Doing homework alone sucked, Rey decided. She'd just successfully tested for Green Belt a few weeks prior and she'd taken to spending Sundays at the Dojang, even though the open practices were reserved for seniors. Master Luke had been kind enough to offer the use of his office so she could work on the various essays he was still assigning her, along with her own schoolwork.

She could have gone to the library, but Ben didn't practice his forms at the library.

Not that she cared. Or watched. She definitely never did that. It was only coincidence that there was a window built into the wall between the office and training space. If she happened to look up from her work every once in a while, that didn't mean anything.

Rey groaned. The history paper she'd been assigned was unbelievably dull. She'd been there an hour and only managed to write down her name. She found herself resorting to glancing around the walls of the office just for a distraction.

Sure, watching Ben would have been enough of a distraction, but at some point it just felt like staring and Rey  _did not stare_.

The office walls were covered with framed photos and off-white certificates much like the ones Rey had gotten with each promotion. The certificates were also framed, and were printed mostly in what she assumed was Korean. She'd never really gotten a good look at them, but after considering it for a minute, she realized they were probably Master Luke's.

Rey stood up from the desk to get a better look at them. The ones for each level of colored belt looked quite old, but very similar to the ones she had. There was a long row of them, and after a dozen or so, she noticed they got much larger, and considerably more fancy. These were Master Luke's Black Belt certificates, she realized.

They were much larger than a standard piece of paper, and each one was covered in beautiful stylized characters, more Korean writing, and Master Luke's name and rank. As she scanned the certificate in front of her, Rey's eyes landed on a line of text, and she froze. She remembered Master Luke mentioning the name, but she'd never actually considered the implication.

Grand Master Ben Kenobi.

 _Kenobi_.

By the time she'd picked her jaw off the floor, Ben was nowhere to be found, probably having gone to change. The rest of the students had left for the afternoon, and Rey decided Master Luke was the person she needed to talk to. He wasn't always present for open practices, but he always stayed in the building in case he was needed, so she climbed the stairs and knocked at the door to the apartment over the Dojang.

He answered the door after a minute, and greeted her with a smile. "Rey, what can I do for you? Your gear hasn't come in yet, if that's what you were here for."

She blinked, and suddenly felt very nervous to hear the answer to her question.

"Master Luke," she started hesitantly, "Who is Ben Kenobi?"

His eyes widened and Rey couldn't stop the small bit of smugness rise up. Master Luke could be surprised. She hadn't been sure that was possible.

"Why do you ask?" he asked.

"His name is on all your certificates, sir. I didn't think about it during my first practice, when you asked if I was related to him, but..."

Rey looked up at him, more confused than before.

Luke sighed, and opened the door wider, gesturing for her to enter. "I think we might have a lot to talk about, kid."

* * *

Master Luke hadn't said anything yet. He handed her a large mug of green tea (tea seemed to be his answer to everything) and sat in the chair across the table from her.

He hemmed and hawed for a minute, clearly not sure of how to start the conversation he'd been putting off. Rey wasn't sure how to start it either.

"Grand Master Kenobi was my Master," he finally explained. "And my friend. If I'm being honest, he was the closest thing I had to a father. He died almost fifteen years ago, probably a little while after you were born."

"Is he my-"

"I don't know," Master Luke cut her off softly. "He was always very private about his personal life. I know he had a daughter, but they were estranged. She had some... _problems_."

Rey didn't respond. She wasn't sure how to.

After a minute or so of silence, Luke spoke again. "I still have his boxes. It was very...upsetting, when he died. He listed me as his next of kin and I inherited all of his things. All these years later and I still haven't gone through them."

He deliberated for a few seconds before sighing. "Want to go through them with me? Maybe we'll find an answer to your question."

Rey's mouth had gone dry. She wanted to scream at him, to ask why he didn't remember until just now, but the pained look in his eyes said enough. That hadn't been an easy question for him to ask her.

That just meant he thought it was possible. That, maybe, he believed it was true.

"Okay," she said quietly. "Let's find out."

* * *

The storage locker was small, and it held only about two dozen boxes neatly packed, stacked and labeled. Luke took a deep breath and walked over to the first stack, smiling nervously back at her. Rey moved to stand next to him, and they cautiously opened one box at a time. They passed time looking over each item with care and silence, and Rey drank in every bit of detail, every trace of fabric that this potential relative had stored with all the grace and hunger befitting a starved animal.

Rey almost didn't care that she may just be getting her hopes up. Ben Kenobi could have been a lazy good-for-nothing who wasted away in a one-bedroom apartment in Mos Eisley and she still would have wanted to know all about him if he was family.

It was in the sixth box they opened.

The first five had been filled with a mix of books and Taekwondo memorabilia.

The sixth had held more books, and a small, dark blue photo album.

Luke pulled down another box and got started on it while Rey skimmed through the photo album. She paused and inhaled sharply when she reached the last few pages, and found a small, faded picture of a woman with familiar hazel eyes and long brown hair, her expression distant and sad. She held a baby, swaddled in a light yellow blanket.

Rey took the photo out and considered it carefully. It wasn't proof. Not really. The child could have been anyone.

That's what she told herself. It would have been easier that way. It was easier to just imagine her parents as faceless, barely existing entities who didn't have real lives and real problems.

But then she flipped the photo over.

_Rey, 4 months._

It was like the world had hiccuped. The axis of her reality tilted awry.

It took Luke a few minutes to notice, and it was long enough for her tears to start falling.

"Rey?"

She glanced up at him numbly, and held out her shaking hand, offering him the photo. He accepted it with wide eyes, and flipped it over, seeing the familiar, neat handwriting of his late Master.

" _Oh_." It was all he could think to say. He closed up one of the boxes of books and sat on it, not taking his eyes off the photo. "You're his granddaughter," he whispered. "I didn't know he had a granddaughter."

Rey blinked, still in shock. A year ago she'd barely imagined having friends, and now...it was overwhelming. She cleared her throat, "What- what happened to my... _mom_?" The word stuck in her throat, but she forced it out.

Luke looked up at her with weary eyes and gestured to another box of books. "Why don't you sit down."

She did as he said, and he sighed deeply before answering, "I don't know her name. I'm sure you could find it in one of these boxes, but Ben didn't talk about her much. All I know is that she left home when she was a teenager, and," he paused, "she got involved with a guy and they made a lot of bad decisions."

"Like what?"

He hesitated, but chose to answer her honestly. "Drugs, I think. Just before he died he got in contact with her again. I assume that's how he got this picture."

"So, how did I end up in the system?"

"I'm not sure," he said, his tone gentle and empathetic. "My guess is that they kept making more bad decisions. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it was out of spite." He looked over at Rey, and saw the devastation that was surely in her expression, and seemed to realize his mistake. "I can help you find out, if you want."

She nodded slowly, but didn't look any better.

"He was an incredible person," Luke said quietly. "My sister named Ben -  _our Ben_  - after him. I don't know much about your parents, but I can tell you a lot about your grandfather."

Rey thought about it for a minute before countering his offer. "Maybe over some burgers?"

"Yeah, kid," he chuckled. "Sure, over burgers."

* * *

Luke and Rey had spent over an hour discussing Master Kenobi over burgers and floats. Rey kept interrupting him, peppering him with stupid little questions like ' _Did he like animals?'_ or ' _What was his favorite food?'_  Stupid little questions that made Ben Kenobi less a figure of (personal) legend and more the kind of person she could run into at a grocery store. Someone real.

At the end, Rey floundered, trying to put words to her thoughts, and actions to her wants. Nothing about this was right, she thought. Good things just didn't happen to her.

He seemed to sense that, and gave her a soft smile, and a final bit of advice. "I know this is important to you kid, but I don't want you to lose yourself in thinking about it. The belonging you're looking for isn't in your past, Rey. It's not behind you. It's right here - in your present, and it's in your future."

She considered her Master's words. She wasn't sure this was something she could just put behind her, but at the very least, she knew she needed time to process it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Halfway through sophomore year, Rey meets a certain red-head and tests for her Purple Belt.
> 
> Dobok: The uniform of a Taekwondoian.
> 
> Sparring: So, there are two types of sparring I've done. The first is without gear, and I've heard it referred to as "Promise Sparring" (as in, "We're not wearing gear, so I promise not to hurt you"). That sort of sparring is usually limited to light taps. The other sort is full-on sparring with gear (generally arm and shin pads, a chest protector and a helmet), and it's pretty much a free-for-all unless you decide to aim for the face or spine. That's pretty frowned upon. In my Dojang people don't usually get gear until Green Belt (or Purple, depending on the person). Rey's getting hers before she tests for her Purple Belt.
> 
> Knife Hand Strike: A strike in which the striking surface is the muscled base (pinky-side) of an open hand. When using this technique for breaking, you'd normally tightly curl your fingertips toward your palm, which would remain flat - this it usually done to prevent breaking fingers just in case your aim happens to suck.
> 
> Poomse/forms: There are 8 poomse a color-belt learns as they progress toward becoming a Black Belt. A poomse is basically a pattern of defense and attack moves, and a Taekwondoian's highest poomse should be a good indication of what they know. For example, in this chapter, Rey knows up to the third poomse, which has certain techniques she's just recently learned. Each new poomse incorporates the new techniques a student is studying.
> 
> Taegeuk Il Jang: First poomse/form learned, usually as a White Belt
> 
> Taegeuk Yi Jang: Second poomse/form learned, usually as a Yellow or Orange Belt
> 
> Taegeuk Sam Jang: Third poomse/form learned, usually as an Orange Belt
> 
> Order of Belts: This changes from Dojang to Dojang, but for the purposes of this story, the order is as follows: White, Yellow, Orange, Orange/Green Stripe, Green, Purple, Blue, Blue/Red Stripe, Red, Red/Black Stripe, Brown, Brown/Black Stripe, Bodan (Black Belt Candidate), Black Belt. Then of course, you have various degrees of Black Belt. I just thought this would be pertinent since I'm mentioning Rey interacting with different belt-levels.
> 
> As far as the self defense techniques, I think I described them well but if you have questions just let me know!
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 



	8. Purple Belt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this chapter was fun to write. Enjoy!

_Purple represents the changing sky of dawn, as the student undergoes changes and prepares for the transition to advanced student._

* * *

"Are you sure that's all of it?" Rey asked, frowning at the small car-full of boxes. She stood next to Ben outside of the Dojang, shivering in her thin green fleece jacket.

Ben took a quick glance over the items packed into the car. "That's all of it," he said, shrugging, "I don't need much."

Rey looked up at him, and hoped he could see her obvious displeasure. She put her hands on her hips just for good measure. "Ben, you don't even have dishes. Or silverware. Or pots and pans."

"Huh." He tousled his hair and grunted. "Okay, so, maybe I'll have to buy a few things."

"You don't have furniture either!"

"I already moved my bed," he argued, "and a chair, and a bookcase."

"Oh, well that will  _definitely_  be enough to fill an apartment," she mocked.

Ben rolled his eyes.

"The kid's right," Luke said as he came up to them, carrying the last box outside. He shoved it into the back of the car, and gave a very Ben Solo-esque smirk to Ben. "You're going to have a  _very_  empty apartment." He paused, and his smile got a little softer. "You can stay, you know."

"I'm twenty-three, Uncle Luke," Ben said, not unkindly. "I think it's time for me to move out."

"That's probably true," Luke nodded. "Let me know when you get sick of cup noodles, though, and I'll invite you over for dinner. I'll make my mac and cheese."

"You make boxed mac and cheese, Uncle Luke." There was something despondent and amused in Ben's tone.

"Yes, well, it's three steps more than pressing a button on a microwave."

Rey couldn't stop herself from giggling, which soon spread to Luke and Ben. Once they composed themselves, Luke slammed the trunk hatch closed after several tries and turned to the pair. "I'll meet you two there, alright? We'll help you unpack and I'll order a pizza or something."

"Are you sure you don't want me to make you some ramen?" Ben asked sarcastically.

Luke was already walking away, chuckling to himself and muttering something about cheeky nephews.

* * *

The apartment building they parked next to was made of gray brick, and was surrounded by tall, dark green shrubs that hadn't yet been covered in snow. It was a short drive from the Dojang, and Rey took comfort in knowing that the regular diner-trips they made likely wouldn't be disturbed by the move. By now, she guessed they were Maz's best customers.

Rey pulled a large box out and noticed quickly that it must have been one of the ones that was filled with books. She groaned at her poor luck, but sucked it up and hoisted the box further into her arms.

"Need help with that one?" Ben asked.

Rey shook her head stubbornly, refusing his assistance. As of her last promotion, she was up to fifty push ups and situps, and she took pride in the fact that her small frame was now starting to support a decent amount of muscle.

"You know I'm on the third floor, right?"

"I'll just take the elevator." She would have shrugged, but the heavy box limited her ability.

Something darkly amused shone behind his eyes. "No elevator."

Rey groaned again. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," he chuckled.

" _Schadenfreude_."

She carried it anyway (because screw him and his amusement at her plight), and only started regretting her decision when she finally reached the landing of the third floor, her muscles burning and her head pounding.  _Did he really have to have so many books?_

Rey set the box down on the landing in front of apartment nine and waited for Ben to arrive. Of course he was carrying  _two_ boxes, the show off. He readjusted them to carry their weight in one arm while he unlocked the apartment door, and set them down just inside.

She wondered how easy it'd be for him to carry her.

A microsecond later she was thankful she was already flushed from the trip up the stairs.

The apartment wasn't quite as big as the one he'd shared with Luke, but Rey thought it was plenty big enough. The room they'd just walked into had large windows that let a pleasant amount of sunlight stream in, and the floors were a light hardwood. The walls were a plain off-white, which should have seemed drab, but somehow the whole apartment just had a nice airy feel.

"Did you really have to pick one on the third floor?"

Rey looked back to see Master Luke frowning grumpily, setting a box on the floor behind her.

"Sorry Uncle Luke," Ben grinned, "but shouldn't you be telling me it'll be a good workout?"

Luke grumbled and shook his head. "You have a  _lot_  of books." He thought for a minute and suggested, "Why don't you two finish carrying things up and I'll start unpacking things? We'll consider it your training for today."

Rey couldn't stop the whine from escaping until she saw Ben take off his jacket.  _Yeah, she could help carry some boxes_.

She blinked, shook the thoughts from her head, and exhaled through her nose before pointedly focusing her eyes back on Master Luke (who was either completely ignorant or a masterful poker player), nodding in agreement.

* * *

On their third trip back up the (now dubbed hellish and demonic) stairs, Rey nearly plowed someone over with a box. He'd been coming out of the apartment across from the one Ben was moving into, and all Rey could see over the box she held was the man's bright red hair.

" _Hux?_ "

" _Ben Solo?_ " the man asked in a strong Irish accept. "Are you my new neighbor?"

"I guess so," Ben laughed. He actually  _laughed._  Rey hadn't seen him so much as grin at anyone outside of her and Luke.

The box Rey held was weighing heavily on her arms, so she moved past the men as politely as possible, setting the box down inside before returning to the landing to meet the man she'd nearly dropped a box on.

"Rey, this is Hux," Ben explained, "we lived together for a few years in college."

"Nice to meet you," she smiled.

The pale redhead inspected her curiously, before nodding and returning her greeting. He seemed nice enough, Rey supposed, but she couldn't make out the expression he had whenever he looked in her direction.

"I'm making plans to cook these two," Ben gestured to Rey, and Luke, who had come to see what all the noise was about, "dinner next weekend once I've got everything moved in. Want to join us?

Hux seemed to give a great deal of thought before nodding in agreement. "Let me know if I need to bring anything."

"Should be fine. Remember, I'm cooking."

"Ah," Hux seemed to think deeply on that for a moment. "I'll make sure to have the EMTs on standby then."

* * *

"Sorry, Rey," Rose commented after considering the dress her friend wore, "Yellow just isn't your color."

Rey glanced down at the dress she'd picked out and frowned. "Are you sure? It's so cute."

"I think you should try the green sweater with the cream skirt," the girl suggested. "It'll work with your eyes."

The girls had decided to leave Finn's early that Saturday to meet Rose's sister, Paige, at the mall. Rey hadn't spent much time with Paige, but the woman said that she hadn't had a day off in a while, and she'd insisted on having a girls day, which apparently meant eating junk food and buying things at stores. She was mildly amused that this meant she'd had 'girls days' with Ben. Rey had saved a gift card the girls had gotten her once they found out she'd turned fifteen, and she'd decided to get something cute for the dinner she was going to that evening.

And so, there Rey was, trying on outfits the sisters were picking out for her.

"So, Rey," Rose said when her sister left to put a dress back, "should I read into the fact that you're getting dressed up for tonight? For your dinner?" She giggled, "...with  _Ben?_ "

"Master Luke is going," Rey said quickly-but-hopefully-not-too-quickly. She was thankful to be in the changing room though, otherwise Rose would have certainly noticed her blush. "One of Ben's neighbors will be there too."

"Uh huh," Rose said, noticing her friend had skated around her implied question. "So are you going to admit it, or not?"

"Admit what?" she replied innocently.

"Oh  _come on_ , Rey, you like him. It's so obvious."

Rey poked her head out of the changing room, her eyes wide, "What do you mean ' _it's obvious_ '?"

Rose paused for a minute before she realized why Rey seemed panicked. "Don't worry, I doubt he's realized it. I just mean it's obvious to  _me_."

Rey sighed, relieved, and went back to changing.

"So, uh, you're admitting it?"

"Rose," Rey whined. "Please don't make me say it, I feel silly enough already."

"Alright, alright," the girl laughed, "but you know you can talk to me, right? I don't think you're silly. I mean, it's a little unrealistic considering your ages, but I'm not judging you." She hesitated before adding, "I heard that guy in biology has a crush on you. Liam? ...he's cute."

"Oh, uh, I guess," Rey said from the dressing room. "I haven't really talked to him."

"Maybe you should," Rose said quietly.

Rey finally exited the changing room in a cream-colored flared skirt, that came just above the knee. Tucked into it, she wore a thin, fitted dark green sweater.

"Whoa, Rey." Paige had finally returned, and seemed surprised by the outfit Rose had picked for their friend. "That's such a flattering outfit. I would  _kill_  for that waistline," she groaned.

"It's probably all the Taekwondo," Rose commented. "You're there, what, five days a week, now?"

"Sometimes six," Rey shrugged. "This isn't too boring?"

"Boring is not the word I'd use," Paige laughed. "Mature, maybe. I love it. It's conservative, and you look comfortable, it looks  _amazing_  with your eyes...if you don't pick this one, you're crazy."

"If you really think it needs something, you could always add a belt, or a necklace," Rose added. "But Paige is right, this is perfect."

Admitting defeat (and ready to be finished with the shopping trip turned interrogation), Rey agreed, and chose to trust their instincts.

* * *

"Stop fidgeting."

Rey winced again, but listened to Rose, and tried to stay as still as possible.

"Rose, when I said you could help me get ready, I really wasn't expecting  _this_."

The girl sighed. "A little eyeliner never killed anyone, Rey. It's not that big a deal."

Rey groaned. There was no point in arguing, but she  _really_  didn't feel like getting poked in the eye with liner or a mascara wand again, so she stayed still and let Rose finish. Worst case scenario, she'd wash it off in the Dojang locker room before she and Master Luke walked to Ben's apartment.

After an eternity, Rose finally leaned back, and studied Rey's face for a moment before nodding. "Okay, I'm done. See what you think."

She prepared what she hoped would seem like an authentic smile (because really, this was probably going to be a nightmare) before looking at the mirror Rose held in front of her.

"Huh."

It barely looked like Rose had added anything. Her eyes seemed a bit bigger, maybe even a bit brighter, and it seemed like her face was a little flushed, but in a flattering way. It was a far cry from the nightmarish clown-worthy makeup she'd been expecting, and now Rey felt a little bad about doubting her friend's skills.

"This is great," she finally admitted. "You're going to have to teach me how to do this."

* * *

It took Ben  _forever_ to answer the door. Years, nearly.

Rey tapped her foot nervously, and spent a moment admiring the flats Rose had lent her before glancing over at Luke, who also seemed confused as to why his nephew was so  _freaking slow to answer the door_.

Rey was about to say some very unflattering things about Ben's punctuality and hospitality when the door finally swung open to reveal a very flustered Ben. His hair was a complete mess (even more so than usual), and his dark shirt seemed to be covered by a mix of flour and what may have been breadcrumbs. While he stood frozen at the open entry, the apartment's fire alarm started going off.

"I, uh-" Ben's eyes darted back to the kitchen. "I should get that," he said loudly (and probably not at all to run away), his voice barely carrying over the alarm. He rushed back to the kitchen, leaving the door open to Luke and Rey.

As per usual, Master Luke was deriving his amusement at Ben's expense. "I knew letting him cook would be a mistake." He then made of show of sniffing the air and fake-choking. "Hey Ben," he called out, "why don't I order delivery?"

"Uh...yeah!" Ben shouted back, still struggling to stop the fire alarm, "Yeah, that'd be good!"

"Oh God, who let Solo cook?"

Rey turned back toward the doorway and saw Hux carrying a bottle of wine, a bemused expression on his face. She finally let out the giggle she'd been holding back.

"Shut it, Hux," Ben called from the kitchen. Finally, the fire alarm stopped, and Ben walked out into the room they were all in, brushing the flour off his shirt. "So...takeout?" he asked, sheepishly.

"I'll go call," Luke nodded, wisely returning to the hallway to make the call.

Ben sent him a thankful smile, and then turned his attention to Rey when she carefully enveloped him in a hug, taking care not to get any flour concoction on her sweater. "Hey Rey, haven't seen you in forever," he joked.

"It's been too long," she laughed, perfectly fine with the fact that his arms were still around her. "Yesterday was  _ages_  ago."

He smirked and let her go. He glanced down at her, pausing for a moment, noticing in that typical  _guy_  way that something was different, even if he couldn't figure out what it was. Rey rolled her eyes and shook her head.  _Men_.

Hux cleared his throat, and passed Ben the bottle of wine he'd been holding. Rey noticed Hux shoot him a  _look_ , but she couldn't decipher it.

"Food is on its way," Luke announced. "Hopefully it'll be more edible than...whatever Ben tried to make."

"It was supposed to be chicken parm," he grumbled.

Hux laughed. "Am I going to have to have to call the EPA on you again? Ben, last time you tried cooking with meat you gave the whole building food poisoning."

* * *

The Thai food Master Luke had ordered was incredible. The last year or so Rey had spent with Luke and Ben had been the  _best_ , food-wise. Well...actually, it might have just been the best in every way. They stayed for a few hours, and Rey was amused to no end, listening to a never ending supply of stories about a White Belt Ben, narrated masterfully by Luke while Ben turned red.

Hux...well, Hux was quiet. He seemed friendly enough, but Rey kept noticing him look between her and Ben, and she couldn't figure out what his deal was. She supposed it didn't really matter. If he was Ben's friend, he couldn't be  _that_ bad, right?

Around 9 PM, Master Luke finally looked over to Rey. "I should probably get you home, kid."

She frowned, but nodded. They'd stayed longer than she expected, so she couldn't really complain about needing to leave.

Ben stood up when they did, and walked them over to the front door. "Thanks for ordering food," he said finally, more than a little embarrassed by his cooking fiasco.

"It was no problem," Luke said. "Rey and I had a bet going anyway. She lost."

"You had a  _bet?_ " Ben huffed. "Is Rey really the only one who thought I'd be able to make dinner?"

"Oh, no, you misunderstand," Luke laughed, not caring that Rey was starting to blush and was trying to get him to stop talking. "I bet that dinner wouldn't be great and we'd end up ordering food. She bet that you'd burn the apartment down."

Rey made firm eye contact with the floor, but she could feel Ben staring at her. To her relief, he let out a laugh himself, and replied sarcastically, "Nice, Rey,  _thanks_. It's great that you have so much faith in me."

She rolled her eyes and finally looked up at him. "You could have proved me right, then. Now I owe Master Luke extra push-ups."

Ben just shook his head, and wrapped her in another hug. "You deserve it," he muttered. "My cooking isn't  _that_  bad."

"I wouldn't know," she snickered. "You've never successfully cooked me a meal."

Ben just grumbled before hugging a bit tighter, then finally letting go. "Keep being a brat and I won't try to again."

"Oh, what a shame, Rey," Luke gasped playfully, "better be nice, that way you can find out what food poisoning is like!"

Rey cracked up. "Right? That was a  _terrible_  way to convince me to be nice! ' _Keep being rude and I won't potentially burn down my apartment building again_.'"

"You two are the worst," Ben said dryly, his arms folded over his chest. Rey glanced up, mildly concerned that she'd actually pissed him off. Much to her relief, he was grinning.

"Alright, alright," Luke smiled. "Night Ben. Thanks for having us."

Luke left the apartment, but Rey didn't follow. She just wasn't quite ready to leave.

She smiled back at Ben, and gave him another quick hug. "If you cook again," she said, her voice muffled against his chest. "I promise I'll give it shot."

"Thanks, kid."

Rey let him go, and gave Hux a quick wave as she left to catch up with Luke.

She heard the door shut behind her, and couldn't help but notice the warm, almost feverish heat from where he'd hugged her. She told herself it was just the food and by the time she reached the first floor she'd almost convinced herself of that.

* * *

When Ben turned back to the table, assuming he'd have another couple of drinks with Hux before calling it a night, he noticed his friend wearing a smug look.

"You know, I've got a nice lawyer friend if you need one. She's even kinda cute but probably not your type." Then he added, muttering, "... _might_ be a bit too old for you."

"What, why?" Ben's brow furrowed, trying to figure out what Hux was talking about. "And why would I need a lawyer?"

"Really Ben?" Hux scoffed, "I know you're thick, but you aren't blind. I know you aren't asking me ' _what'_  after that spectacle. Rey seems lovely, really, but there's no way she's 18."

"She's 15," his eyes narrowed. "What's your point?"

Hux groaned. "Oh  _Ben_ , you  _idiot_. Again, lovely girl but can you say  _jailbait_?"

Ben's jaw dropped. He made several failed attempts to speak before he finally gathered himself.

"Are you out of your mind? That's not what's going on." He started pacing awkwardly across the living room. "Is that seriously what it looks like?" He shook his head. "Hux, I swear, she's just a friend. I can't believe I even have to say that. She's one of Uncle Luke's students," he explained. "We see each other almost every day. I mean, sure, we're close, and," he paused, "honestly, she's probably my closest friend, other than you, but  _fuck_ , it's not like  _that_."

Hux, in his inexorable smugness that reminded Ben of why they got along so well in the first place, did not seem impressed.

"And have you told  _her_  that?"

"I think you're imagining things." Ben stopped pacing and cringed. "Plus, that...is  _not_  a conversation I want to have with her."

"I'm sure," Hux chuckled. "It would be unbelievably awkward, but if you don't you'll probably regret it." He considered his friend curiously, before saying quietly, "I've never seen you hug anyone. Not your parents, not your Uncle, not your friends..."

"What's your point?" Ben asked defensively, ready for the conversation to be  _over_.

Hux frowned and considered him carefully for a moment before replying. "I'm not sure."

* * *

Rey was always excited to get a new belt, but part of her was a little sad to be putting away her Green Belt. She'd  _finally_  got it to that nice, soft, flexible point where it tied tightly without a lot of effort, and now she was trading it for a new, stiff Purple Belt. Not that she was complaining, of course, but new belts were always so much harder to tie.

"Purple looks good on you," Master Luke beamed.

She gave him a big smile, and posed with him while Finn's gran took their picture.

The promotion had gone smoothly. She'd had to spar Jess, but the girls had spent more time practicing together in the last month, and Rey finally felt like she was getting the hang of it - she thought she'd held her own during the fight.

Breaking had gone  _beautifully_ , with Rey's axe kick breaking the board neatly. It hadn't split down the middle like some of her other breaks, but at least she'd done it on the first shot.

Master Luke excused himself for a minute so he could greet the parents of other students.

"That was awesome," Finn grinned. "How long until you're a Black Belt?"

Rey shrugged, and Ben must have been behind her, because he answered for her. "She's got almost three years to go if she tests on time," he admitted, "but I don't think that'll be a problem."

She smiled back at him. "Are we still seeing a movie with Master Luke after this?"

"That's the plan," Ben said, "unless you were going to hang out with Finn and Rose."

"Nope," Rose said quickly, winking at Rey. "We have plans, so she's definitely free tonight."

Rey cringed and shot Rose a look that said ' _Please, please shut up'_ , then hoped Ben didn't notice that her friend was being  _super obvious_. She chanced a glance back at him and  _thank God_ , he hadn't.

Sometimes it was a relief that he was oblivious.

* * *

The movie theater was surprisingly crowded for 4:30 PM on a Sunday. Promotion had, for once, run on-time, and ended within four hours. Rey had a sneaking suspicion Master Luke had planned that specifically so he could drag her and Ben to a movie he'd been talking about all week.

 _Jurassic Park_.

Master Luke had been completely horrified when she admitted she'd never seen it, and now here she was, at the theater with two of her favorite people.  _What a shame_.

"Sometimes this theater shows older movies," Ben explained while they waited for Luke to pick up their tickets. "I still can't believe you haven't seen Jurassic Park - it's a classic!"

Rey shrugged. "I don't watch movies at home, and when Rose and I sleep over, Finn always picks old horror movies...as long as his Gran isn't paying attention."

"Well, I'm sure you'll like it. I'm not as obsessed with it as Luke, though," he said, "but that's probably because I don't have a huge crush on Laura Dern."

Luke came up behind them and groaned. "I do  _not_  have a crush on Laura Dern."

"Yes you do," Ben chuckled.

"She's a very attractive actress," Luke replied, a little defensively, "I can admit that without having a crush. She's just...very talented."

Ben smirked, and Rey pressed her lips into a thin line, before giving in, letting a laugh slip out. Luke shook his head at them. "Whatever. You'll both be doing extra push-ups tomorrow." His eyes took on a mischievous gleam when Rey whined. "I hope making fun of me was worth it."

He winked at them on the way to the concessions line, and Rey sighed, knowing he probably wasn't kidding about the push-ups. She shot Ben a look that playfully screamed ' _This is all your fault'_  just she heard a voice off to her right.

"Rey?"

She turned in the direction of the voice that she couldn't really place.  _Oh_ , it was that guy from biology. The one Rose had mentioned. Awkwardly, Rey couldn't remember his name, but Rose was right, he was kind of cute, she guessed.

Honestly, it was a little hard to think of guys as being  _cute_  after spending six days a week training and hanging out with Ben Solo. Appropriate or not, that's just the way it was.

"Oh, hi," she said uncomfortably, desperately trying to hide the fact that she  _still_ couldn't remember his name. She was such a terrible person - this poor guy had even been her lab partner for something and apparently had a crush on her and she didn't even remember his name.

Ben looked between them, seeming just as uncomfortable as she felt, and quickly excused himself to join Luke in line at concessions.

The guy ( _wow,_ she really needed to remember his name) took a few steps away from the small crowd of friends he was with, coming over toward Rey. He gave her a big smile before looking back down at his shoes. She took the opportunity to look at him a bit more closely, and yeah, Rose was right, he was kind of cute. He had dimples, light brown hair that was just long enough to curl a bit, and he was about her height, and he'd always seemed pretty nice.  _Liam_ , she finally remembered, feeling terrible it had taken her so long.

Oh no, he wasn't saying anything. They were just standing there looking at each other and their respective feet like a couple of dolts. Someone needed to say something before this got any more awkward.

Liam was still alternating between looking at his shoes and everywhere around her face (but not at her specifically, she couldn't help but notice), so it looked like it was up to Rey to be the brave one.

"So, what's up?" Rey asked awkwardly.

He replied quickly, too quickly for her to understand what he'd said.

"Could you...say that again?"

Liam seemed to make a very visible effort to slow down. "Doyouwantogotoamoviesometime?"

Rey blinked. "Uh...what?"

"Do- do you want to go to a movie sometime?" he repeated, at a normal speed this time.

"Oh," Rey paused. "Like...with you?"  _Of course he meant with you, you idiot_. She groaned internally.

He nodded, and smiled again. His smile was...kind of sweet, actually.

"Sure," she replied, before really thinking anything through (Why brain,  _whyyyy_ ).

His smile grew wider, and he just said, "Great, we can talk tomorrow, in Biology?"

Rey nodded numbly before he walked back to his friends. She was still processing. Had she just agreed to go out on a  _date_?

* * *

"So what was that about?" Luke asked, an eyebrow raised, when Rey finally walked over to join them at the line that didn't seem to be moving.

She blushed, of course. "Nothing."

"Kid," Luke laughed, "I'm not sure if I've told you this, but you're an awful liar."

"Liam's in one of my classes at school," she muttered, cursing her skin for turning red. "And he... _may_  have asked me out."

Ben frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. "Aren't you a bit young for dating? You're only fifteen." He glanced over in Liam's direction, and added, "And how well do you know him? Are you sure he's okay?"

" _Ben_ ," Luke exclaimed, "don't be so ridiculous. Rey's a smart kid. Besides," he added, chuckling, "we've seen her kick. She can take care of herself."

"I'm not a little kid," Rey snapped, looking at Ben angrily. She'd mostly ignored Luke's comments in favor of glaring at Ben. "And I can date whoever I like."

Ben kept frowning, and grumbled a bit. Rey rolled her eyes, and crossed her arms, mirroring his annoyed body language.

They didn't speak to each other for the rest of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A dance and a detention.
> 
> I don't think I used any Taekwondo terms this time, but let me know if I missed anything!
> 
> Also! I have a Tumblr now, so that's a thing. Not entirely sure how to post to it yet but I'll figure it out soon...ish? Find me at AttackoftheDarkCurses :D
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 



	9. Blue Belt, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting! Thebuildingsnotonfire and I have had a ridiculous amout of work to do since our grad courses are wrapping up (Yay finals! /s). Honestly though, professors who require both a final project and in-class final are pure evil.
> 
> Anyway, Blue Belt was originally supposed to be one chapter, but it ended up being really, really long, so I decided to split it into two parts (Part II should post in the next few days). I think it makes more sense that way, too. I went back to chapter 8 to change the "Next" description in my notes since most of the events I mentioned won't happen until the second half of Blue Belt - sorry about that!
> 
> Last but not least, I finally have a Tumblr. That doesn't mean I know how to use Tumblr, but at the very least, I've figured out how to post chapter updates and I can answer questions and stuff. Feel free to come find me at AttackoftheDarkCurses. I'll probably just post/reblog about Star Wars, Superheros, Parks & Rec, The Office, and cats. Oh, and chapter updates, of course. But seriously, if anyone has tips on using Tumblr properly, please send help. I'm getting a Masters in something computer-related and somehow I'm completely useless when it comes to online social media platforms. Go figure.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Blue signifies the blue sky as the plant continues to grow toward it. A blue belt student moves up in rank, just as the plant grows taller. Just as light feeds the plant so it can grow, knowledge of the Art feeds the student in order to grow and develop their mind and body._

* * *

If Rey had been asked, and chose to answer honestly, she would have said that she hadn't exactly planned to date Liam. Sure, he was nice enough, but the fact that she'd barely known his name after a few months of class together was probably a sign. One she chose to completely ignore, and that turned out to be a good thing, because dating him was actually  _fun_.

He had been a little awkward in class the day after she'd run into him at the theater (well, if she were honest, she hadn't been that eloquent either), but they managed to hold a conversation long enough to make plans for that next weekend since it was basically the only time Rey wasn't guaranteed to be either in school or Taekwondo. She realized quickly that she had a surprisingly packed schedule for a fifteen year old, but Liam didn't seem to mind.

They met at the movie theater that Sunday afternoon after Rey told Master Luke and Ben that she wouldn't be there to do homework since she had plans. She may have conveniently left out the fact that her plans were actually a date. Part of her wanted to see Ben's reaction, but the winning part knew full well that he'd just get all protective and paranoid again, and she did  _not_  need him acting like her big brother. Rose was right, and Rey was coming to terms with the fact that her crush was more than a little unrealistic, but being relegated to the position of  _little sister_ would just be rubbing salt in the wound.

Liam had picked a horror movie, after hearing that she liked to watch older horror movies like  _Evil Dead_  or  _Scream_ , but it turned out to be significantly (and in her mind, unnecessarily) gorier than Rey would have liked, and while mildly annoyed by the movie choice, she found she didn't mind that he used it as an excuse to hold her hand.

That part wasn't bad. It was...kind of nice. Liam occasionally got sweaty hands, but he was sweet and the way he blushed whenever he looked at her too long was kind of adorable.

Rey made a mental note to listen to Rose more often.

Their second date was at the mall the next Saturday. He held her hand again and insisted on paying for lunch at the food court. It frustrated her a little bit that every person in her life seemed to think she couldn't pay for herself, but she let him, and if she happened to blush a little when he kissed her cheek... _well_.

* * *

Rey wasn't sure when it happened, but at some point after their second date, Liam had started joining her at lunch. Rose kept getting all giggly about it, but Finn wasn't nearly as welcoming.

If the way Finn moodily dropped his tray down onto the table was any indication, it was possible he was quite annoyed by the addition to their little group.

"Oh, hi," he said dryly, barely bothering to greet them.

Rey scowled.  _What was his problem?_

Rose was more than happy to ignore her moody friend, and continued to talk to Liam in that bubbly way of hers. "Is your biology class doing that thing where you put an egg in different types of liquids to see when the shell dissolves? That's what our class is doing. It's  _so_  much better than dissections."

"Does regular biology still do dissections?" Liam asked. "I thought that was just in AP." He shrugged. "I think a dissection would be really cool. I heard in some college biology classes, students dissect cats."

Rey made a soft, sad noise. "That's  _terrible_."

"It's not like they're still alive," he frowned.

"But still," Rey said, "I couldn't dissect a cat. The poor things!"

Liam shrugged again, "I think it's cool."

Finn glared, and Rey knew he was undoubtedly thinking of his beloved cinder tabby, who was safely at home and not in danger of being a subject for biology students.

Rose just looked between her three lunch mates with an expression like ' _Oy vey.'_

Finn broke the silence, clearing his throat. "So Rey, when's the next promotion?"

She perked up, no longer thinking of the poor cats, and dove into the new topic. "In about two months. I'm testing for my Blue Belt this time, so I'm less than a year from being a senior!"

"Promotion?"

Rey frowned over at Liam. "I mentioned Taekwondo, didn't I? That's why I'm always busy after school."

(Well, that and staying away from Unkar, but that wasn't something other people needed to know.)

"You mentioned it," he said, "I just didn't know you had promotions and belts and stuff. I guess I just thought that was stuff that happened in movies."

Her frown intensified. "No...I'm on track to test for my Black Belt a little after we graduate."

"Oh," he said, shifting in his seat and picking at his food. "Well, good luck, I guess."

An awkward silence descended on the table, but only Liam seemed immune to it. Finn looked unimpressed now, abandoning the clear dislike from earlier, and that just made Rey worry all the more.

"So what do you like to do, Liam? Rose asked, her smile stilted by the lull.

Liam shrugged. "I play a lot of games. And stuff."

"I see."

Neither Rey, nor Rose, nor Finn could say anything to that. None of them had the time or money for video games. It wasn't like she and Rose could by something, and Finn's gran would have called in a priest if she found him with something like that.

"Oooh! There's that retro-themed arcade that opened up on Kessel Lane." Rose lit up, "Maybe we can all go there sometime?"

Bless Rose and her good-natured persona. Rey was still playing catch up from the sheer disinterest Liam was showing the conversation.

"Yeah, I guess," Liam said, once again shrugging. Was there something wrong with his shoulders? Rey just wanted to shake him and make him stop.

Recognizing her own budding temper start to flare, Rey stopped her mouth from spewing whatever she was going to say. Taking a deep breath, and an equally long exhale, she plastered a smile on her face and joined the distinctively one-sided conversation.

* * *

Rey spent the rest of the afternoon carefully monitoring herself, continually stopping her mouth from running away with comments that her brain most certainly did  _not_  clear for takeoff. The worst part was that she couldn't even point out  _why_.

Unfortunately, the reason didn't matter much, because Luke noticed her anger  _pretty_ quickly when she got fed up during sparring and rage-kicked Jess a lot harder than she should have.

Jess wasn't wearing gear, so as to give Rey experience against someone who wasn't weighed down by padding. Luke called it a siege exercise. Rey was to last as long as she could against Jess, who was free to strike and move unhindered.

And Jess just had this stupid  _fucking_ smirk on her face.

Rey's strike came reflexively after Jess's guard faltered, a single moment of weakness after all this time of Jess kicking her ass. Even though Rey's shins were padded to help prevent broken bones, when her leg slammed into Kess with floor-rattling strength, Jess went down.  _Hard_.

Jess fell down, curling in on herself. Rey watched it all in slow motion, relishing in her final victory before reality caught up to her, and horror seized her by the throat.

 _That felt good_ , the monster in her mind cackled.  _Didn't it?_

Everyone was staring at her.

Master Luke was advancing upon them. "Rey!" He snapped. "Gear OFF."

One the floor, Jess retched.

"You two!" Master Luke pointed to a pair of seniors who'd been on the sidelines, offering guidance to lower belts, "Get Jessika to the locker room. Let's give her some space."

Rey cringed and wished she could rewind the previous five minutes. Since that wasn't an option, she took off her gear as instructed, staring at the floor, desperately hoping that if she stared enough she'd sink into it.

No such luck.

"Kyungnet."

Rey stared at him, uncomprehending.

"I said  _Kyungnet_." Master Luke's expression had cooled over into something frozen and terrifying. Rey had to force herself to bow and look away, half-sure he was going to dismiss her right there.

"My office,  _Miss Kenobi_."

He only called her that during Promotions, or when she was in trouble. Ben gave her a dark, but unreadable look, having also figured out that Master Luke was about to verbally ream her for the unnecessarily rough sparring.

Master Luke didn't speak again until they were in the office. He crossed his arms, exhaled loudly, and gave her a  _look_. Rey knew this look. She'd last seen it from him when they were in Principal Holdo's office. It was disappointment, and it hurt more than that stupid knife-hand break had.

"Want to tell me what's got you so worked up?" He asked finally. His voice was gravelly and thick with an emotion she couldn't fully decipher.

Rey sighed. He wasn't going to let her go without a satisfactory answer, so she told him, "I think it's Liam."

Luke's brow furrowed. "Liam? We don't have a Liam here."

Rey scrunched up her eyes and hoped she didn't start crying even though she didn't understand why she would. "Liam...Liam's my boyfriend."

"Boyfriend." He crossed his arms. "From the theater?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"And did Liam tell you to attack Jessika like that?"

"No, it's just…" Rey struggled to find the words to express her feelings. "He just didn't seem to care when I talked to him about this. The Dojang, I mean."

Luke didn't say anything, but his eyes narrowed.

"You had a fight with your boyfriend, is what you're telling me. About Taekwondo."

Rey didn't know if it qualified as much of a fight if she didn't argue back (and  _oh_ did she want to argue back), but it was the closest thing to an explanation, so she just nodded. Meekly.

"I'm sorry, sir."

A full minute went by in silence and Rey spent it looking down, afraid of seeing the look in Master Luke's eyes.

When she finally looked back up at him, he nodded. "I appreciate the apology. Don't let it happen again."

"Yes, sir," she said quietly.

"And Rey," he added, "I'm the last person to take dating advice from, but if he doesn't understand why it's so important to you, you should show him. Invite him to your next promotion, if you want. I'm sure your friends wouldn't mind if he joined them."

 _That might not be the case_ , Rey thought, but she just smiled up at Master Luke. "That's a good idea, sir."

"Okay kid, go apologize to Jess and work on your new poomse. And Rey, if it happens again, you'll be fighting me. I'm not going to let you hurt other students. It's not okay. You should know better by now."

Rey blanched and nodded quickly before leaving the room.

_Fight Master Luke?_

* * *

Somehow Rey ended up at the mall again, and she groaned after the fifth dress she tried on, finally admitting she needed her friend's help.

"Rose," she moaned, "Please. I need you."

"Finally," the girl laughed. "Come here, let me see what you've got."

She took a look at the dresses Rey held up and cringed. "Oh, honey,  _no_."

Rey was about to roll her eyes at the girl's reaction, but stopped herself at the last minute. She was the one who needed help, so she was just going to have to put up with Rose's scolding.

"How many times have I said that yellow is  _not_  your color?" Rose asked. She put the sunny dress aside and glanced ruefully at another. "And this one is  _so_ short. Seriously Rey, I'm pretty sure Principal Holdo would kick you out for wearing that."

"How was I supposed to know?" Rey whined. "I've never been to a dance before."

It had been a few weeks since the awkward lunch and scolding from Master Luke, and Rey's mood and feelings toward Liam had improved considerably. He had started to seem a bit miffed whenever she had to turn his plans down in favor of practice, but they'd gone out a few more times in the last three weeks or so.

In fact, during their last date, a nightmarish trip to a roller skating rink that Rey would  _never_  return to, the woman who rented them skates had referred to Liam as Rey's boyfriend, and Rey hadn't corrected her. Liam smiled at that, and took her hand. It would have been considerably more charming if it hadn't been followed by Rey falling on her ass half a dozen times before giving up.

High-section round kicks? Sure, no problem.

Flipping and spinning into moves and strikes worthy of a Wuxia movie? Absolutely.

Strapping wheels to her feet and moving forward?  _Apparently not_.

It had been embarrassing, to say the least.

"I'm not sure I like any of these," Rose admitted, snapping Rey from her thoughts. She thought for a minute and gasped. "I have one at home that would be perfect on you! It's green. You really should wear more green."

Rey smiled broadly and took Rose up on her offer.

* * *

Paige helped the girls with their make-up and hair, settling on loose face-framing curls for Rey and a cute braided look for Rose, before turning into a bit of a mom, insisting on taking a few dozen pictures.

The dress Rose loaned her was pretty perfect. It was a little short, with capped sleeves and a cute, but modest, sweetheart neckline (at least that was what Rose said - Rey didn't have a clue and personally thought the words sounded like something from a QVC salespitch). The dark green really did do a lot for her eyes. Rey could at least admit that.

When Paige was finally satisfied with the pictures, the girls piled into her car and picked up Finn, who seemed to have received the same photography-treatment from his Gran. He wore plain black slacks and a button up, and Rey was a bit jealous that it probably only took him ten minutes to get ready, especially since Rose had spent twice as long just on Rey's makeup.

Rey was meeting Liam at the dance, and oddly enough, she wasn't nervous.

Tonight was going to be fantastic.

* * *

The music was too loud, the body spray was too strong, and the room was  _way_  too warm. Someone had decorated the gym in garish streamers, and there were white balloons all over the place. It didn't seem to have any theme, unless the theme was  _terrible high school dance_.

But also, it was kind of great.

Rey had gotten about a ten second dance lesson from Rose, and hoped that her Taekwondo skills would somehow cover the rest.

They didn't, and Rey blushed deeply as she stepped on Liam's foot for the third time.

"Sorry," she said, cringing.

Thankfully he didn't seem to mind. His arms were at a respectable height around her waist, and it was just... _comfortable_. He was alright, Rey thought. Nice enough.

He must have thought the same, or better, of her, because one minute they were laughing over Finn's dance moves and the next he was kissing her.

Rey guessed it wasn't entirely out of the blue. After all, they  _had_ been dating for a month and a half. That was kind of a long time to go without kissing, wasn't it?

The reality was, she had no idea. She hadn't really thought about kissing him.

She gleefully waved the doubts in her mind and let herself fall into the feeling, finally returning his kiss. Liam was a bit dim and a little insensitive, but he  _liked_ Rey and that made kissing him surprisingly fun.

* * *

"You  _have_ to tell me what it was like!"

Rey groaned for the billionth time since they'd left the dance. Rose had apparently seen her and Liam kissing, and now she was insisting on living vicariously through her friend.

They were both in the bed they usually slept in at Finn's house, and they'd gotten back from the dance so late that the woman ushered them to bed, muttering something about them not having time for horror movies.

"It was okay."

" _Okay?_ " Rose repeated, sounding shocked, scandalized, and probably some other word starting with S. "What do you mean,  _okay?_ "

"I don't know," Rey admitted, because she really didn't know. Liam had been fun, and courteous at the end, and his smile had been warm and kinda' dreamy when they parted. "I guess I just thought my first kiss would be different."

"Different how?"

Rey thought for a minute before answering, "I thought I'd have butterflies. Or at least be a bit nervous or something."

"Have you had butterflies before? Are you sure you know what they feel like?"

"Yeah," Rey answered before realizing she'd only ever felt that wonderfully nervous feeling around Ben. She was grateful the lights were off, so Rose couldn't see her luminescent blush. But thoughts of Ben brought guilt as well, because she realized she was comparing the two, and that wasn't fair to either of them. "I'm not sure I like Liam. I mean, I like him, he's nice. I'm just not sure I  _like_ him, you know?"

Rose's voice was melancholic as she answered, "Yeah, I know what you mean. I think that's what's going on with Finn and I. I think we're just good friends...I'm not sure we'll ever be more than that."

There was a story there, but Rey's mind kept drifting to the space between her and her boyfriend.

(Because she definitely wanted a  _man_ friend.)

Rey groaned. Damn her brain.

"That's exactly what I mean," Rey eventually said, once her superego came in and put a gag on her id. "But I'm not sure. I like it when he holds my hand. I liked dancing with him. Even the kissing was  _nice_ , it just wasn't what I expected."

"Maybe you should give it some time," Rose suggested. "I don't really know what it's supposed to be like, but maybe you had all of those things built up in your mind without knowing what reality would be like."

"Yeah, maybe." Rey said. She paused, and lifted her head, looking over at where Rose was laying. "Speaking of Finn, why's he being so weird around Liam?"

"Oh, ignore him," Rose groaned, "he's being stupid. He's all worried that you're going to ditch us now that you have a boyfriend. I tried telling him what an idiot he was being but it didn't help."

Rey's eyes went wide as she rolled over to face her friend, "I would  _never_  ditch you guys."

"I know, don't worry," Rose said, smiling.

Rey was struck stupid by the simple and absolute faith she heard in her friend's voice. Rey was always a little thrown off balance by Rose's simple and enduring  _goodness_. Part of her even wanted to be jealous, and wished she could be like that, but it was impossible because then Rose would honestly and enthusiastically congratulate her for something Rey didn't even think was all that impressive in the first place.

They stayed like that, talking about silly and inane things well into the night (it was determined that Rey was really a cat, and and Rose was going to be the one to discover Atlantis). Eventually their talks dissolved into mumbles and finally, into whispers.

"Hey Rey," Rose said softly, and probably without even thinking, "Do you still like Ben?"

Swallowing hard, Rey rolled on her side, facing away from Rose, and didn't answer.

She fell asleep to thoughts of Ben in a suit, and wondered how much he'd mind her stepping on his toes.

* * *

Biology was usually  _such_ a great class, filled with fun labs and group work. It was a class Rey looked forward to every day.

Today was not that day.

Some students looked forward to having substitute teachers, but in Biology, a substitute teacher usually just meant a long class filled with a really, really boring movie. Half the time, Rey struggled just to stay awake.

Ten minutes into a documentary on  _The Cell_ , Rey was almost too zoned out to notice the note Liam slipped over to her. Things had gotten a bit better between them since she'd invited him to the Blue Belt promotion she'd be having at the end of the week, and he seemed a bit more supportive.

_Hallway, 5 min._

She blinked, and immediately excused herself to the "bathroom", deciding anything would be better than the video they were being forced to watch.

As it turned out,  _anything_  ended up being making out in an empty classroom.

His lips were soft, his breath wasn't terrible, and his hands were at her waist, so it was nice.

(Nice. Everything was always  _nice_. Nice hands. Nice face. Nice  _relationship_ …)

Of course she had to push his hands  _back_ to her waist a few times when he thought he'd found a better location for them, but that wasn't much of a surprise.

There were never any fireworks, but Rey guessed that was something that only happened in movies, so she didn't think much of it. She pushed away the voice in her head that sounded like Master Luke telling her to  _get back to class immediately young lady_ , and lost herself in the moment.

Until the door opened.

A shock of purple hair peeked into the room, and Rey and Liam practically jumped apart, somewhat shocked to see Principal Holdo.

The woman stepped further into the classroom, knowing exactly what she'd interrupted. She put her hands on her hips, and cleared her throat before saying dryly, "Shouldn't you two be in class?"

They nodded quickly, flushing with embarrassed. Thankfully Principal Holdo just shook her head, probably asking herself for the millionth time why she decided to work with teenagers.

Rey walked back to Biology with red cheeks and a detention slip.

* * *

Sunday came much more quickly than Rey was prepared for, and she made a point of arriving at the Dojang an hour before Promotion started just to work on her forms. For the first time in a while, she felt woefully unprepared.

"Looking a little rusty on your first few poomse, kid," Luke frowned. "I know it's getting a bit tough now that you know five of them, but over the next few years you'll learn quite a few, and you need to make sure you can still do well with your old ones."

She nodded and exhaled nervously before beginning again.

Rey was incredibly thankful it was just Master Luke and Ben who watched her fail spectacularly. She'd begun performing the first poomse she'd learned, and somehow ended it with moves that belonged to the second one.

"You're distracted," Luke said in an amused voice. "Anything to do with the detention you got on Friday?"

"Rey got a detention?" Ben's eyebrows shot up and he looked over at her. "You didn't sell more homework, right?"

"No," Luke chuckled. "At least that's not what I heard."

She'd forgotten Luke and Principal Holdo were friends. She really shouldn't have forgotten, especially since this wasn't the first time it'd come to bite her in the ass.

"So what'd you do?" Ben asked curiously.

"Yeah Rey," Luke struggled to conceal his mischievous grin. "What'd you do?"

She looked between them for a minute, hoping they were going to drop it. They weren't, and she went with the first story she could think of, hoping Principal Holdo had been vague when she told Luke the reason she'd gotten in trouble.

"I...uh...skipped class. I was helping Rose. It was only for like, twenty minutes though, and we had a sub who just had us watching a movie, so I didn't think it was a big deal."

Ben seemed to relax considerably, to her relief.

But then Luke spoke up, and Rey nearly died of embarrassment.

"That's funny, I'm pretty sure Amilyn mentioned that she gave you detention because you were fooling around with your boyfriend in an empty classroom instead of being in Biology."

 _So that's what mortification felt like_.

Rey could literally feel her face burn, and Luke laughed. "Don't worry kid, it's okay, we've all been teenagers. Just don't skip class in the future."

It was a relief that he wasn't angry, but his reaction also wasn't the one Rey was both worried and curious about. She risked a quick glance over at Ben.

He seemed just as surprised as she was embarrassed. "You have a  _boyfriend?_ "

"Uh, yeah," she said awkwardly. "The guy who asked me out at the movies. When we saw Jurassic Park?"

His eyes narrowed. "I  _knew_ he looked like a troublemaker. And now he's, what, getting you to ditch class so you can fool around? Rey, you're  _fifteen_ , you shouldn't even be doing that shit! What's this kid's name?"

Embarrassment gave way to something else. "I'm  _plenty_  old enough!"

"No you aren't!

"I  _am!_ " Rey contested hotly. How  _dare_ he?

" _Hey!_ " Their eyes shot to Master Luke, who rarely raised his voice.

"Ben, chill out. Rey's a smart kid, and her boyfriend's coming to Promotion, so we'll get an opportunity to meet him then. Let me repeat -  _meet_  him. That does  _not_  mean you can interrogate him. And Rey, don't yell at Ben. I get it, he's frustrating, but we're still in a Dojang and he's a Black Belt. Yell at him all you want outside, but not in here."

He sighed, and then said softly, "Ben, I feel confident that Rey would tell us if anyone was ever hurting her or putting her in situations she wasn't comfortable with. So, relax."

 _Oh,_ and that feeling was guilt. Deep, stabbing guilt, because she'd had nearly a year and a half to tell them about Plutt, and she still hadn't.

Rey took a deep breath, and shook her head.

_One problem at a time._

* * *

Overall, Promotion went better than Rey's practice that morning had. Although, that probably wasn't saying much. But, her forms were good, her blocks were great, her kicks were high, and her board snapped as soon as her elbow hit it.

It could have been worse, Rey thought.

She held her new Blue Belt, and did as Master Luke instructed, turning to the face the back of the room while she untied her Purple Belt and tied a long strip of blue around her waist for the first time, tightening the knot with a quick pull.

Blue felt good.

While waiting for Luke's command to face the front, Rey glanced quickly at the audience, to where Finn wore an uncomfortable look, probably because he was sandwiched between Liam and Rose. Rose seemed elated as usual, and gave Rey a quick wave. She returned it with a wide smile, and then looked over at Liam.

His expression was a cross between discomfort, boredom, and annoyance.

He didn't even stay to meet Master Luke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A competition, some shipping, and a charming new Black Belt.
> 
> Taekwondo Terms:
> 
> Kyungnet - Bow
> 
> I think that's it!
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 



	10. Blue Belt, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Blue Belt kind of slipped away from thebuildingsnotonfire and I. This is part 2 of 3. I promise, after the next chapter we'll be moving on to Rey's next promotion.
> 
> Just a quick reminder. Rey's got an abusive situation going on at home, and it's going to be relevant in this chapter. I don't think it's graphic, (and it's 100% NOT sexual) but I wanted to remind everyone just in case.
> 
> ***Head's up: SPOILERS for Dresden Files.****
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 


 

The sound of a bottle smashing somewhere in the living room upstairs was Rey's alarm clock that Saturday morning. It was just as well - according to her panda wristwatch, it was a little before five in the morning. She had to be up in fifteen minutes anyway.

Rey yawned and thought back to the fringe remnants of her dream.

(" _You're just too weird, Rey."_ )

Rey had been a Blue Belt for almost a month, and Luke was finally - after months of asking (read: begging) - letting her attend a competition. Generally he only brought the seniors, but this time he'd decided to bring Blue Belts and up...which was basically just Rey and the seniors. She wouldn't be competing, which was a relief, because she didn't exactly excel at sparring, or at her most recent poomse.

She debated whether or not to lay in bed and wait until her alarm went off, before her decision was made for her by the sound of another bottle shattering upstairs. Usually when he broke multiple bottles, it meant he was trying to get her attention.

Rey reluctantly climbed out of bed and pulled on the jeans and gray hoodie she'd picked for the unseasonably cold spring they'd been having. She pulled her hair out of its buns and shoved a brush through it, huffed about her split ends, and then decided to leave it down. She'd taken a shower the night before and while she slept her hair had dried into soft waves, and she thought they looked decent enough.

Finally, she had to face the fact that she needed to go upstairs. Prolonging it or avoiding it entirely would only make things worse. She grabbed her backpack and nervously trudged up the staircase, opened the door, and made her way into the living room.

If someone needed a visual representation of the words "miserable", "awful," or "despicable", they'd kill three birds with one stone and by introducing themselves to Unkar Plutt. Rey had figured out early on that the man only kept her around for the stipend he received each month, and he made no attempt to hide it as he chided her for not having a job and not "carrying her own weight."

She'd gone nearly a week without seeing him, but she was a bit surprised to see that his right leg was wrapped in a white cast. He was in his usual scratchy old recliner that was probably older than she was, with nearly a dozen empty beer bottles and some orange bottles of (what was hopefully) prescription medication on the side table next to him. The room reeked of booze, smoke, and something else equally nauseating. Rey wondered if this counted as an early morning or late night for him, and found she only cared as far as it made him uncomfortable.

"Clean tha' up," he slurred. He pointed to the smattering of glass in the corner, sweat and spit dribbling down the side of his mouth.

Well, there wasn't much he could do with his leg in a cast, was there?

Rey took a deep breath, and put her hands on her hips. "No," she said in her best big-girl voice. If she tried hard enough she almost couldn't hear her own fear. "That makes no sense. You only made that mess while trying to get my attention so I could...what? Clean that mess? No. I won't do it. I'm not your maid."

His cloudy eyes seemed to zero in on her face and his voice gained that locomotive grumble that said he was not in the mood. Rey just told herself the goosebumps on her arm were from the cold.

"Clean it. And get me another beer."

"No," she said, wavering. "You- you probably shouldn't drink if you're on pain meds."

Plutt's head tilted as he considered her for a moment, likely waiting to see if she'd back down and give in. Beady eyes focused on her and Rey had barely a second to react and dodge the beer bottle aimed right where her head had been.

She gulped. The drinking hadn't done much to worsen his aim (it never did, Rey was never that lucky). She yelled at him to stop just as another landed at her feet, shattering.

The third came in and skimmed the side of her head, and Rey's world turned on its axis as she fell against the wall from the impact. She spent an eternity trying to remember what to do, but when the fourth one hit her shoulder hard and broke into pieces at her feet, she realized Master Luke had never prepared her for dodging beer bottles.

(Because you shouldn't even have to.)

So she ran.

* * *

Rey didn't stop until she arrived at the bus stop, and she hopped on the bus that had just pulled up along the sidewalk. She'd left earlier than planned, and was on track to arrive at the Dojang almost half an hour early. Thankfully, she knew Master Luke wouldn't mind.

She got her breathing under control just as she got off the bus, and she was relieved to find the front door of the Dojang unlocked. Rey had every intention of heading into the likely-empty locker room to let out the tears that were still threatening to fall. It wasn't like Plutt hadn't done worse before, but that was like saying losing a leg made getting stabbed easier. They both sucked and it was her inborn right to hate it - hate it like how fire burns right through wildgrass. She just wanted to stop shaking, because this was supposed to be a good day, and good days don't start with booze and fear.

Her plans immediately fell apart when she managed to walk directly into Ben.

"Whoa, Rey," he laughed, placing his hands on her shoulders to steady her. She winced, and resisted the urge to rub against the already forming bruise from earlier.

As if the day could not be getting any more  _perfect_ , Ben immediately noticed. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said. She looked away, and fought back the tears even harder.

Rey gave him a small and insincere smile, but when she looked up and saw how worried he was, she felt a pang from that part of her called her conscience. "Really, it's nothing," she assured, pulling him in for a hug.

Ben paused for a moment, then sighed and wrapped his arms around her. "Hey, kid, have you had breakfast?"

She let him go (reluctantly), and shook her head. Plutt wasn't exactly the type to cook, or go grocery shopping for anything non-alcoholic.

He frowned at her answer. "We have time to pick up some breakfast sandwiches from Maz. Sound okay?"

"You don't always have to buy me food," Rey grumbled, feeling guiltier by the minute.

Ben just rolled his eyes. "Well, I'm getting something from the diner and I'd like the company. You may as well get something while we're there."

Ugh. He was smiling at her.

Somewhere in Rey's crotchety heart, something uncurled, and she felt herself smile back.

* * *

He'd insisted on ordering them an array of breakfast sandwiches and pastries, then added on a few of Maz's cold sandwiches to-go, claiming the food they usually sold at competitions was rubbish.

Rey grumbled a bit more when he paid, and only let up on the grumbling when she turned and saw the large bus that had parked outside the Dojang.

"Is that  _ours_?"

Ben saw where she was looking and nodded. "Yep. Sometimes we can carpool, but Uncle Luke got a good deal on renting the bus for the day and he thought it would be easier than coordinating seven or eight cars. I think it's a bit overkill, but at least this way we have extra space for all the gear."

Rey thought for a minute before beaming up at him. "Want to sit next to me?"

"We're only taking twenty-three people," he pointed out. "I'm pretty sure each person can have their own row."

She was disappointed until she saw him reconsider his answer, and shrug. "But I guess it wouldn't kill me to have some company. It  _is_ a three hour ride."

* * *

"Okay everyone," Master Luke announced from the front of the bus. They'd only been on the road for five minutes and he'd decided to give them a quick talking-to before everyone either fell asleep or put on headphones. "A few things about the competition today. I don't think I need to remind you that you're representing the Dojang when you're in public - whether you're competing or not. I don't care if you're sparring, sitting on a bench, riding on this bus, or hanging out in the cafeteria. While you're there, and especially while you're wearing a Dobok, you represent the Dojang. Be respectful.

"Now," he continued, "Today, they're setting up eight different areas. Four for poomse, and four for sparring. I'll try to be with each of you as you compete, but some of you will be going at the same time on in different areas. I may not always be able to be there, but I can guarantee that if I'm not there, Ben or another Black Belt will be there to coach you.

"Last but not least, I've got a permanent marker - please make sure your name is on each item of gear you have, and  _please_  try not to lose any of it." He smirked over in a bodan's direction. "Talia, we've ordered you new shinpads twice now. Let's try not to make it three times."

Talia, a tall willowy girl who occasionally helped Rey with poomse, blushed as her friends heckled and jeered playfully at her. Rey couldn't stop her giggling at the sight.

"I think that's it," Master Luke finished. "Make sure you eat well, keep hydrated, et cetera, et cetera. And be polite to the driver! No yelling or sparring on the bus."

Rey cast a disbelieving look in Ben's direction, and he shrugged. "It's happened."

She laughed, imagining an attempt at sparring in the aisles, and then settled further into her seat next to Ben. The bus was surprisingly comfortable, and Rey had enough space to curl up in her seat. Ben, giant that he was, did  _not_ have that luxury, and had thus insisted on the aisle seat in an attempt to increase his leg-room.

"So what do you normally do on the ride?"

"Read, usually," he said. "Sometimes I just sleep, but it's usually hard to get comfortable enough in these seats."

Rey perked up at the mention of reading. "I forgot to tell you!" she said excitedly, rummaging through the backpack at her feet. She pulled out a book and showed it to Ben, a broad smile on her face. "I haven't had a lot of time to read through them since I've had a lot of books assigned in class this year, but I'm almost done."

"Hmm,  _Cold Days_  is a good one," he said, "How far in are you?"

"Harry's back in Chicago and he's at Molly's, and she's patching him up."

Ben snorted. "Ah, right. The whole 'wounded warrior' trope. Butcher was  _not_ subtle with that. I guess it's not surprising that some people like them together. I've always been particular towards Elaine."

"Wait, the traitor?" Rey blurted out.

"She was being mind-controlled." Ben defended. "They've got history. Besides, it's certainly more realistic than his  _student_."

Rey's cheeks burned a bit, and Ben groaned when he noticed. "Oh, no,  _please_  tell me you aren't a Harry-Molly fan. He's known her since she was a kid! Plus, he's basically her mentor for most of the books she's in. It's... _weird_."

She frowned and crossed her arms. "Isn't she in her mid-twenties in this one? How's that weird?"

"There's still a huge age difference," he pointed out. "Something like fifteen years, I think."

Rey huffed. "I think they'd make a good couple. Molly's a badass."

"She is," Ben chuckled. "Well, I guess we'll find out. As far as I know, there are a few more books planned. You'll have  _Skin Game_  and the short stories, but after that, it'll be at least a year before the new one comes out."

Rey dropped back against her seat and (over)dramatically bemoaned the prospect of waiting for the next book. There was  _no way_  she could stretch one book and short stories out over a year.

"Sorry," he laughed, "I didn't mean to bum you out. I'm glad you like the series."

Rey nodded. "It's great."

Ben smiled, and leaned back in his seat. After a few minutes of attempting to adjust it, he finally got comfortable, and glanced over at her, his head tilted questioningly. "Is your boyfriend coming to the next promotion? I didn't meet him at the last one."

"Meet him, or interrogate him?" Rey asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Uh…meet." Ben quirked his lips into a smirk. "Let's say  _meet_."

"Right." She rolled her eyes, and very definitely did not look over at him. "Well, he's not my boyfriend. He broke up with me."

Liam's voice echoed through her mind. " _All this stuff...it's not really my thing, y'know?"_

"Oh, is that why you were upset this morning?"

"No. It happened a couple of days after Promotion. I'm not really upset about it," Rey shrugged. "He got really weird about me doing Taekwondo after he came to watch. I assumed it was probably going to end after he just left without giving me a chance to introduce him to Master Luke."

Neither of them said anything for a moment. It was Ben who broke the silence.

"Hmm. Kill him? You're a total badass now, you could probably do it."

"Ben!" she laughed, playfully smacking his arm. "No!"

"I know a guy who can get us a good deal on shovels," he said seriously. "Heavy. Sharp. Inconspicuous."

"You're terrible," Rey said, shaking her head.

"Eh," Ben shrugged. "He wasn't good enough for you anyway."

"How would you know?" Rey asked, amused. "You barely met him."

"If he doesn't think what you do is the coolest thing  _ever_ …" Ben paused, "Okay, so maybe I'm biased, but still, if he doesn't support it, then he wasn't good enough for you."

Rey hummed, and then smiled softly. "Thanks Ben."

"So...why were you upset this morning?"

She blinked for a moment, and swallowed the bit of truth that was on the tip of her tongue. "I just got in an argument with one of my friends. It's no big deal."

Ben's eyes narrowed. "I guess we're back to this again." He sighed. "Rey, what's going on?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about. We just got in an argument last night," she lied, "it's just still bothering me, that's all."

He didn't believe her. That much was obvious. Much to Rey's surprise and relief, Ben didn't say anything else. He just grunted, and shook his head.

* * *

Rey wondered if all Grandmasters had to make everything an educational experience, or if Master Luke was just  _special_. He'd said that she was to watch as many breaks, poomse performances, and spars as she could - preferably those involving others at or around her belt level. She knew eventually she'd end up taking part in similar competitions, and she was curious to see what she could expect when the time came.

The gym the competition was hosted at was massive. It had a full-length track and tall wooden bleachers pressed up against the wall to make space for everyone, with room to spare. There were eight different areas of around forty by forty feet, with various chairs and tables denoting judging stations. Four of the areas had a small mountain of boards and cement blocks around them - these were designated for poomse and breaks, though they would clean up debris in preparation for sparring later. Each of the sparring areas had several electronic wires running around the perimeter, along with electronic displays showing points for both participants. Rey noticed several people testing various buttons, looking frustrated and overworked.

Quite a few Dojangs had arrived by the time they got in, and more kept trailing in behind them. Within half an hour of their arrival, it seemed that there were hundreds of people present. Everyone from Luke's Dojang (sans Rey) had changed into their dobok and started warming up, performing kicks and various drills as Master Luke called them out.

Rey had a secondary assignment, she discovered, as Ben tossed her a digital camera. "Master Luke said to have you take a few pictures, specifically of the sparring matches this afternoon. It's always nice to take a look at them to see if you need to make any changes to your form," he explained.

Nodding, she hung the camera over her by the strap so as not to lose it, then walked off a little ways away. She made sure to stay in eyesight of Ben as he started warming up with a series of hurricane kicks and spinning hook kicks, his dark hair occasionally falling into his face.

She decided Ben's form was  _just fine._

And there she was again, blushing in a sea of people who'd notice, for no apparent reason.

 _Great._  Today was going to be hell.

* * *

It was right around the third round of poomse that Rey admitted that  _maybe_  she wasn't as good as she'd thought she was. She'd just watched a Purple Belt from another school perform Taegeuk Sah Jang, the fourth color-belt poomse. Rey had learned it a few months earlier, and had felt reasonably confident with it. Until now.

The girl performing couldn't have been more than fourteen or so, and every move she made was damn-near perfect. Every step had power, every strike snapped with purpose. It was less of a rote repetition than it was a dance. She was tiny, maybe an inch over five feet, but Rey felt incomparably small when imagining her own efforts in the same spot.

After seeing the judges give the girl her scores (all three gave her at least an eight out of ten), she sighed and moved on to the next area, where a bodan, probably closer to Ben's age, was performing Taegeuk Pal Jang, the last colored belt poomse. It was one Rey wouldn't learn for another year or so, and she was fascinated to see it in action, performed by someone unfamiliar. Per Master Luke (when he'd been on one of his philosophical tangents), Pal Jang would serve as the grounding for much of what she'd learn as a Black Belt.

She'd been watching various students perform poomse for over almost two hours when Ben tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey, I'm up next in Zone 3," he said, pointing to an area across the gym. "A few of our Black Belts are going after me. Mind getting pictures?"

Rey nearly scoffed.  _Did she mind?_  Absolutely  _not_.

"Sure," she smiled, doing her best to suppress her enthusiasm and just  _act cool_  (Once she figured out what  _cool_  meant...for not she'd just settle for not falling over herself).

"Perfect. We're starting in 5."

She nodded and followed quickly behind Ben as he returned to Zone 3, where two of their dojang-mates were waiting. Jason and Lorah were both First Dan, both looking like they were probably in their late teens, and Rey hadn't really interacted with them before.

Lorah gave Rey a nervous smile. "Rey, right?" The girl didn't even wait for her reply before continuing. "I've scoped out this zone and most people have been standing over there," she pointed to a spot about ten feet from the judges table.

"Since we're doing this one at a time, you can use video," Ben said. "Just make sure you don't get video of anyone who isn't in our Dojang, especially during sparring. People get weird about that."

"Okay, no problem," Rey nodded.

She wished them luck, and moved to stand in the spot Lorah had suggested. The Black Belt who'd been performing while they talked was just wrapping up, and received scores that were  _less_ than ideal.

"The judges in this zone have been pretty harsh," Ben said quietly.

Rey jumped. She had no idea he's been standing behind her. She collected herself quickly, and looked back at him, noticing with a bit of surprise that he looked nervous. "I'm sure you'll be fine. Which poomse are you doing?"

"Keumgang," he said quietly.

"That's the one you wanted to perform at the demo - the one at my school," Rey commented.

He glanced down at her curiously. "You heard that?"

"Finn and I were pretty close to the front of the crowd," she explained. "Why didn't Master Luke have you show it?"

Ben shrugged. "It might have been because it was a bit new for me. He might have been worried that I was going to screw it up." He took a nervous breath in as someone gestured for him to step out onto the mats.

"Hey," Rey said softly, trying to get his attention before he got to the mats. "You're not going to screw it up. Good luck."

He looked back and gave her a quick smile before settling into a neutral expression as he walked onto the mats.

* * *

Rey was biased. She knew that, but she'd be damned if his Keumgang performance wasn't absolutely perfect. To be fair, she didn't exactly know what it was supposed to look like, but it couldn't have possibly been stronger, or more graceful. It was, in a word...well, actually Rey was having trouble putting words to her thoughts. Really, she was just focusing on taking the requested video and  _not_ turning red.

She was just glad the gym was warm and that she could excuse her redness thanks to the heavy sweater she wore.

It seemed she wasn't the only one who thought he'd done a good job, though she was fairly sure the judges weren't nearly as biased as she was. They gave him 7.5's across the board, which didn't seem fantastic, but judging from the murmuring of some others around her, she understood that was one of the higher scores that morning.

Ben seemed happy enough with the score, and Rey watched him bow to the judges before hopping off the mat to speak with Jason, who was up next.

Poor Jason. He was performing Koryo, the first Black Belt poomse. Rey had seen it practiced a few times, and  _oh_ , the poor guy lost his balance halfway through, faltering completely. He started from the beginning, and improved, but he didn't do nearly as good of a job as Ben had. Considering his scores, it seemed as though Rey and the judges were on the same page.

Lorah was the only Black Belt from Luke's Dojang left. Rey glanced around, wondering where Master Luke was, but realized he must have been off either judging, or helping lower belts. It had been left to Ben to give the Black Belts pep talks, and Rey snorted, assuming correctly that he didn't excel at  _pep_.

Lorah took a confident step to center herself on the mats, and bowed to the judges. She was also performing Koryo, and hers was every bit as graceful and delicate as her small frame suggested it would be. She moved across the mats beautifully, and for a moment, Rey found herself jealous. She'd never been that graceful in her  _life_ , and she likely never would be.

Rey just sighed, and kept filming. Lorah ended the performance with a relieved smile, and received scores almost as high as Ben's. Rey got a quick shot of her scores before ending the video, and made her way over to where Ben and Jason were standing.

"Hey, did you get video?" Ben asked, smiling with relief.

Rey offered him the camera with a smile.

"Great, mind if I watch it over lunch? I figured we could find a spot in the cafeteria to eat. I think everyone from the Dojang is finished with poomse, so we should probably get some lunch."

Watch that again  _and_  have lunch with Ben?

Clearly Rey had made the right choice in attending the competition.

* * *

Maz had actually packed Ben and Rey both proper brown-bag lunches, complete with sandwiches, chips, apples, and, to Rey's delight, chocolate chip cookies.

The woman was an angel.

The cafeteria had been  _way_ too crowded, and Ben, the anti-social guy that he was, suggested sticking around the gym.

They sat next to each other on the floor of the gym, their backs against a wall, and their legs stretched out in front of them. Ben had watched the video of his poomse nearly half a dozen times, grumbling about various mistakes he claimed to have made, before Rey decided she'd had enough. She playfully grabbed the camera from him, setting it on the seat next to her so he couldn't get to it.

He just fixed her with a flat stare. "I was watching that, you know."

She rolled her eyes. "You need to chill out. You did great."

Ben continued to frown at her for a moment until she laughed at him and elbowed his arm. He finally sighed and shook his head ruefully. "You're such a brat."

"You can have the camera back  _after_  lunch," she teased, then paused for a moment before asking, "So, what happens now?"

"Sparring, mostly. Sometimes they run late and need to finish up some poomse, but I think they're actually running a little ahead of schedule-"

"Ben Solo!" a loud voice interrupted gleefully, startling Rey.

She looked over in the direction of the voice, annoyed at someone yelling like that. A guy, maybe a bit older than her, was walking toward them, sauntering with an overly cheerful grin.

"Huh," Ben said, "I was wondering when I was going to run into him."

"Who's he?" Rey asked, just as the stranger reached and sat down on the floor in front of them.

"Poe," Ben greeted by way of explanation, "Didn't think I'd see your mangy hide around here. Who let you off your leash?"

"Ben Solo, your words would wound me if I didn't have to also look at that mug of yours. Alas, I will only pity you."

"...ah, I see," Ben said, as if in realization. "You're still an idiot."

"And I see you're still an ass," Poe shot back, smile turning cocky. "Bet you still probably do that pre-fight caveman grunting thing to psych yourself up. Probably comes naturally too."

The two stared each other down, and Rey wondered when she stepped into the 90's PG sports movie these two were clearly from. For a moment she honestly thought Ben was going to strike him down. That is, until his glare melted back into his usual smirk.

"Good to see you Poe."

"Right back at you, moody boy."

They fistbumped, and not for the first time Rey got the impression that men were an entirely separate, under-evolved species.

_What just happened?_

"Poe, this is Rey, one of our Blue Belts." Ben explained, getting up and stretching his legs. "Rey, this is an idiot. Ignore him."

"Nice to meet you," Poe said, smiling charmingly at Rey.

Rey resisted the urge to roll her eyes again as she returned the pleasantries."Nice to meet you too."

"What's up Poe?" Ben asked.

"Finally got my Black Belt," he said, standing up and hooking his thumbs through his belt, which looked as pristine and still as Rey's. "And I'm starting college in Coruscant this fall."

"No kidding," Ben chuckled. "Am I going to have to put rabid dog signs up in the Dojang when you try to join us?"

"Bite me Solo," Poe fired back without missing a beat. "The university has a Taekwondo group, but I'm pretty sure it's just casual. I don't think they have a Master or Grandmaster who can do promotions, so if I want to advance I'll probably need to train with you guys. Even if it means I have to look at your ugly mug every day."

Rey's first reaction was to immediately ask Poe when he'd gone blind, but that was just her hormones talking and nothing but trouble could come from listening to them. So, instead, she quietly nibbled at Maz's homemade cookie and tried not to think the reason it tasted dry was because of the intrusion.

There was something especially bitter about the cookie as she watched Ben and Poe casually insult each other further.

Ben turned to Rey, finally. "In all seriousness though, this guy's a moron, but he's got the meanest hook kick I've ever seen."

"' _This guy_ ' is also standing right here, you ass," Poe pointed out, yet  _still_ smiled. "Keep it up, pretty soon I'll remind you what that hook kick feels like."

Rey saw Ben do the math in his head. "Wait, are we fighting each other?"

"Ding ding ding, and he finally gets it!"

"Wait, but I thought things were set up by weight class," Rey said. Poe wasn't small by any means, but Ben had maybe half a foot in height on him and more muscle, too. "Isn't that...I don't know...unfair?"

Poe shrugged.

Ben's brow rose. "You're fighting up?"

"You bet," Poe's cheery smile turned sharp. "And when I saw who I was fighting against I came over to say  _hi_  to my good ol' pal Ben Solo, prick extraordinaire."

Poe just got a long-suffering look and a heated glare, courtesy of Ben and Rey respectively.

"...I'm going to enjoy kicking your ass."

"Bring it, punk."

The two of them traded those weird one-armed hugs men did. Despite the words, Rey couldn't sense any animosity between the two (which was weird) and in fact, they seemed to be having fun (which was worse).

Poe bid them adieu (literally) and left. Rey just awkwardly nodded back. Ben was in his own little world, his warm-up turning heated as he practiced various kicks.

Rey knew one thing, though. She was going to  _enjoy_  that match.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: The rest of the competition, and Rey meets Phasma.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: So, the reason this chapter is so delayed is because I'm an overly neurotic perfectionist. My wonderful wife has delightfully pointed this out to me, and she even did it without mocking me too much. Hopefully the next one won't be so delayed.
> 
> Let us know if we missed any TKD terms!
> 
> Keumgang - Second Black Belt Poomse
> 
> Competition Sparring - Full-on sparring with gear (generally arm and shin pads, a chest protector and a helmet), and it's pretty much a free-for-all unless you decide to aim for the face or spine.
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 



	11. Blue Belt, Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank thebuildingsnotonfire for the epic sparring. And the part with Jess.
> 
> ...actually he pretty much wrote most of this chapter while I've been working on the next few chapters.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: Liberties with TKD tournament structure and culture may have been taken, though a good portion of this is from personal experience. Fight scenes have been dramatized appropriately, because fighting is ugly and fast, but also fun in a ow-that-hurts kinda of way.
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 


Jess was the first to spar after lunch, and she managed to land a  _flawless_  spinning hook kick to her opponent's head with three seconds left in their match. It got her just enough points to win, and Rey cheered her on.

The girl bounced excitedly over to where Master Luke stood at the sidelines, and accepted whatever words he had for her before she sat down at the edge of the mat to take off her gear.

After Master Luke walked off to attend to the others, Rey decided to approach her, if a bit timidly (she still hadn't really talked to Jess since the whole  _kick to the stomach_  incident). Once she was close enough she worked up the nerve and asked, "Want any help untying your Hogu?"

Jess didn't even glance over at her.

Rey bit her lip, and bounced nervously on her heels. "You did a great job."

Finally, Jess exhaled, and turned to look at her. "Rey, I get that you want to help, but right now you're kinda' crowding me. I'm exhausted and more than a little bitchy since last time we interacted you kinda'...oh, I don't know," her voice hardened, " _bruised my ribs_  and got away with a slap on the wrist."

Wracking her brain, Rey tried to prepare some perfectly valid reason for her actions, but the upwelling of something ugly and black stopped her. All she let out was a small, fragile, "Oh."

"Yeah. Oh."

Jess' glare softened microscopically, "Listen, I don't hate you. But right now, you're really not my favorite person. Just...leave me alone, okay?. Besides-" shouts rose from one of the corners where the black belts were sparring, "-I think Solo's match is starting. You should probably get over there."

Rey looked at the clock on the far side of the gymnasium. It was quarter past three and Ben's match was supposed to start soon, if it hadn't already.

"I-I have to go record this. Um...I'm sorry," Rey said, and then left before things could get any  _more_  awkward.

(She pretended she didn't hear Jess' callous, but not untrue, mutter of " _No,_  you're not.")

Weaving in and out of the crowd, Rey found the ring where Ben was supposed to compete at and was relieved to see they hadn't started yet. It was the first Black Belt spar she'd have the opportunity to see, and she could feel the difference right away. The color belt sparring areas were a bit roudier and not always organized. People were more relaxed and, maybe not unworried, but at the very least, they were less anxious.

The Black Belt ring was still a bit rowdy. You couldn't get a bunch of martial artists in a room, place them in a competitive and stressful environment with others just like them for several hours straight, and not expect a bit of antsiness. And that was evident in the air around the ring. People murmured excitedly to friends and there was a kind of static in the air as the techs and judges started preparing for the next match.

Ben was there, along with two others from their Dojang, Logan and a dark-skinned boy with squinty eyes named Jeremiah. All three of them were in their Hogu, swapping light and easy kicks against the protective padding on their chests.

"Logan," Ben addressed the boy in question, "I've seen your opponent fight before. He likes to add in feints every four seconds. I know you won't be able to keep track of time in your head, but if you can figure out his rhythm that should let you get in some good strikes."

Logan just blinked at Ben, and shook his head. "Uh, thanks man."

Ben nodded, still the relentless commander, and turned to Jeremiah, who was crouched down and switching between some extended leg stretches. "I wish I could offer you the same, but honestly your opponent just got his Black Belt too. The only reason I know about Logan's opponent is because I had to coach someone against him when he was a lower belt."

Jeremiah nodded silently and then stood to his full height. He was a little taller than Ben, but he was more wiry and less broad, which is probably why he ended up in middleweight. "I'll keep an eye out for anything, boss," Jeremiah said amiably, "But are you going to be ok fighting that guy? Aren't you guys friends or something?"

" _Poe_  is a wild animal who should learn to keep his mouth shut," Ben deadpanned, but Rey could see the eager look in his eyes, "I've been looking forward to this."

Logan and Jeremiah just stopped and stared at Ben. Rey did too. Though, to be fair, she had a hard time not staring at him when he got like this.

It was Logan who broke the silence. "Dude, anyone ever tell you you are  _waaaay_ too intense?"

"Seriously man," Jeremiah agreed, "like, this isn't Street Fighter.  _Chill_."

Ben looked away and coughed awkwardly into his hand. "A-anyway, we'll each have a round and it's best two out of three, with the usual sudden death rules in case there's a tie at the end of each round. You guys got your water bottles? Good. Let's go."

They turned to the ring and came face to face with Master Luke, who, at some point, had clearly had used his mystic master-y powers to show up unseen and listen in to their not-entirely-private conversation.

"You know, maybe I should be the one to do the pep talk next time," Master Luke said, looking not at all surprised by what he'd heard. "But at least that was one of your better ones."

"Thank you, sir." Ben said, completely serious, "I tried."

Master Luke gave him a funny look. "I can still make you run laps if you keep up the cheek, Solo."

Ben smirked. "I'd gladly welcome them, sir."

"Just...get in there," Luke rolled his eyes and gestured to the ring. He said the next part to himself, but Rey was lucky enough to overhear it, "He takes after his father  _way_  too much."

Rey decided it was a good time to move. She didn't want to distract Ben or Master Luke by hanging around and getting in the way, so instead, she looked for a spot that would offer her a good view to record everything from while still sticking close to the side of the mats that her Dojang seemed to have congregated at. On the other side, she could see Poe and his own teammates performing final checks on their gear with a stern-looking woman in Black Belt attire looking over them and offering her own advice.

"Coaches, are you ready?" The judge called out. He was an older man with wisping gray hair who'd probably had his nose broken at least a few times, judging by its shape.

Master Luke and the stern-faced woman with Poe's team both called out agreement.

"Alright, everyone line up!"

After some hustling and bustling everyone was in place, and the traditional bows of respect started. Rey eyed the other team of three, mentally measuring them up against her Dojangmates. Ben towered over Poe, who'd finally seemed to realize it was time to be serious, judging by the stony-eyed stare he was giving.

"Hoh, this is going to be interesting," someone said from beside Rey, startling her from her train of thought, "Ben Solo's going to spar."

Rey turned to look at the stranger. The newcomer was tall, taller than Ben even. Her pale blonde hair was styled in a crop cut that, combined with her aquiline stare and high cheekbones, added a natural air of intimidation that had Rey instinctively taking a step back before she realized it.

"Who are you?" Rey said, looking to the side to see if anyone else noticed the stranger who'd crept onto their side.

"Name's Phasma," said the blonde, crossing her arms and nodding to the ring, "and I think the match is about to start."

As if on cue, the referee cleared his throat and shouted, cueing the two left in the ring, Logan and his opponent, to start kicking the crap out of each other. Rey cursed and fumbled with the clasp on the video camera.

"First time to one of these tournaments, huh?" Phasma continued nonchalantly.

Rey blew a stray bang out of her eyes as she settled and took a firm position to watch the fight. She started the recording just as Logan ate a lightning-fast roundhouse to the face from his opponent. Rey winced in sympathy. Even with padding, a strike to the head was disorienting enough that you would feel it for a while afterwards. Not to mention the morale blow that came from getting one so early in the fight.

Logan recovered admirably, but Rey could see he was shaken, judging by the way he started dodging the strikes more and more, each step putting him further on the backfoot. Black Belt sparring was insanely fast by Rey's standards, each of them striking harder and faster than Rey ever could, and she was sure that if she blinked she would miss at least three moves.

From beside her, Rey heard Phasma laugh. "I see. Gutsy."

Glancing to her side, Rey couldn't stop herself from asking. "What are you laughing about?"

"Your boy there thinks he's being smart," Phasma answered, "I mean, credit where credit is due, it's not a bad improv on the spot considering the pressure he must be feeling, but it's pretty risky, considering."

Logan and his opponent came in close, arms out and tight against their opponents sides, locking each other in place, and they both started feeding rapid fire front-leg strikes into each other.

"He's not my 'boy'," Rey grumbled, away from the camera, "and what do you mean, improv? He doesn't look like he's doing too well."

Phasma smiled mysteriously. "You'll see. Don't look at their legs, or at their faces. Watch their cores."

Brow furrowing, Rey turned back to the match and tried to spot what the woman was talking about. They were moving so fast that it was impossible to keep a steady gaze, but a few seconds in, she thought she started to see what Phasma meant. Logan and his opponent would move their bodies one way only to end up twisting in the opposite to land a strike against the other's gut. It was happening so fast that Rey didn't have a chance to verify it, and before she knew it, half-time had been called.

The two of them lined up and bowed to each other, both looking like they'd just done a ten mile run in as many minutes. They were dismissed back to their sides, where their respective masters awaited them, offering water and whatever encouragement and tactics they could impart within the allotted time.

"You see what I mean, yet?" Phasma asked, arms still crossed and looking cozy and unbothered in her gray hoodie.

"Sort of," Rey grimaced, "they move too fast for me to really tell."

"That's fighting for you," Phasma agreed. "Well, that's sparring for you, actually. Those two are used to being faster, and being tricky."

"But they're evenly matched," Rey said, looking at the electronic screen showing their respective score. It still showed the opposing team as being up by three points, "And after that headshot from the start, Logan's been playing it safe."

"Has he?" Phasma seemed amused. "Did you not hear what I said earlier?"

"Yes, well, you're a creepy stranger in a hoodie," Rey snarked back. "You're like, the definition of stranger danger. Forgive me if I don't hang on to your every word."

"Huh." Phasma mused, "I'm a pretty cool definition then, if you ask me."

(Dammit, she actually was, too).

Rey was going to say something about her new companion's attitude before she heard the referee signal for both fighters to take their places again for the second half of their fight. Huffing, Rey turned the camera back to the ring, checking the battery level just in case.

"Watch just your friend this time," Phasma said, "and tell me if you figure it out."

Rey was about to tell her  _something,_ alright, when the match started and her attention was drawn back to the fight.

Both fighters exploded from their respective spots and met each other in a quick clash of kicks and blocks. They were practically floating for all that their legs touched the ground, each strike meeting a block or parry, neither giving ground in their furious exchange.

They kept it up for maybe ten seconds before Logan broke off, heavily favoring his left leg. His opponent kept on him, switching from quick lead leg kicks to slower, but singularly powerful roundhouses. Logan made the mistake of blocking one head on, and Rey couldn't stop the wince as she heard his opponent's foot strike his forearm.

The form had been perfect and Rey knew how taking that much power head-on could hurt, having tried something similar herself when she first got her gear.

Logan let released a powerful kihap right into his opponent's face, pain and anger audibly mixed in. His opponent feinted to the right-

Rey's eyes widened as she saw it. "Now."

-and stepped straight into the line of Logan's front snap kick. His left leg, which had been standing limply since their initial altercation, rose up like a rocket and crashed into his opponent's face, and Rey knew instantly that the match was done. The other fighter's head snapped back suddenly, but Logan didn't give him reprieve. He stepped forward and rechambered into a lead leg hook kick that twisted his opponent to the side.

The referee immediately stepped in, separating the two, and Rey was briefly confused until she saw that the other fighter's mouthguard had flown into the corner, spittle and sweat around it.

Phasma clapped her on the back, once again startling her. She was grinning. "Not bad, kid. I was wondering if you were going to get it."

Rey took a second to get her heart rate under control before looking back to the fight. They had resumed, but that trick and the subsequent point catch-up had messed with Logan's opponent. He was still fast, but there was no passion - no ferocity to his kicks anymore. Logan kept weaving between blows, so much so that he even stepped out of the ring at one point, earning the opposing team another point, but that was fine because by that time Logan had already scored another three.

The round ended with no fanfare, and both fighters looked like they were going to drop dead right there. They bowed respectfully to each other, to their opponents' coach, and then returned to their friends and Dojangmates, who offered conciliations or congratulations depending. Logan was treated to a heroes welcome by his friends, and a proud almost-smile from Ben, before he immediately and desperately started taking off his Hogu.

"So," Phasma said, assuming that almost-taunting, almost-teaching voice that Rey was quickly learning to hate, "tell me what happened."

"...Logan baited him," Rey said, almost reluctantly. It didn't feel right analyzing her Dojang-mates with a complete stranger. "They were equally matched for the first half of the match."

"Eh," Phasma waved her hand in so-so manner, "it was more like he fell into the other guys' tempo."

"I- what?"

"The other guy was dictating the pace of the fight the whole time," Phasma lectured. "As soon as he got that first strike in he never let up, never retreated."

"Well, yeah," Rey thought back to her own experiences with sparring. Whenever one person got an opening they always took full advantage of it. "That's how it's supposed to be."

The blonde woman made a noncommittal noise. "Problem is, he never noticed Logan's little gambit."

"When he faked a weak leg."

"Exactly," Phasma nodded, "but that was just the payoff. What was the first half about?"

Rey thought for a moment, thinking back to how both fighters looked exhausted after the half had been called. "Tiring him out?"

"More of a side benefit, but still important," and here Rey saw her smirk challengingly, "come on, girlie, show me there's brain under those buns of yours."

Raising a self-conscious hand to the buns (which she liked _,_   _thank you very much_ ) she'd pulled her hair into after lunch, Rey wondered why she was even entertaining this snob. So far Phasma had been rude and abrasive, but she hadn't exactly been truly terrible. Not like people at school could be when they didn't really want her around.

Plus, there was the mysterious fact that Phasma approached  _her_. And she knew Ben somehow.

"A false sense of security," Rey found herself saying before she even realized it. "Logan was lulling his opponent into a false sense of security that first half. He  _let_  the other guy get in that head strike at first, and then he fought as hard as he could to tire him out for the second half, when he'd be too focused on pressing the advantage to see the trap."

The other woman's skylit eyes stared her down and Rey refused to look away.

Finally, Phasma's glare turned warm. Well warm _er_. It went from an antarctic chill to a pleasant tundra blizzard. "You. I  _like_ you."

Rey blinked.

"I knew Ben Solo wasn't going to suffer any fools."

"How do you know Ben?"

Phasma gestured to the ring. "They're starting up again."

Damnit, and so they were. Taking up her previous position, Rey held the camera facing the fight and turned to look at Phasma, who only winked and brought a finger to her lips.

Huffing, Rey muttered something uncharitable about freaky tall blonde strangers (to which Phasma just smiled), and went back to filming the fight.

It was going much better than the first one.

Jeremiah was slower than Logan and the previous opponent, but what he lacked in speed, he made up with range and flexibility. His opponent was a stocky guy with a hanging forebrow that made him look a little too much like an action movie mook. He had pale skin, and his perpetual grimace made Rey think he would have looked more at home amongst a caveman exhibit than a Taekwondo tournament.

Mentally, she dubbed him Brickface.

Brickface ducked under another wide-sweeping crescent kick from Jeremiah, backfooting as the follow-up side-kick came in from three states away. Normally ducking wasn't easy or safe to try and do in a match, what with the immense advantage that the leverage of height offered, but Jeremiah's kicks came in so high that it was relatively easy for the shorter man to simply bob his head briefly and let it pass overhead.

"Hmph. He's not much of a fighter, is he?" Phasma deigned to talk to her again.

"Who? Jeremiah?"

"If that's tall boy's name, then yeah." They watched as Jeremiah strung together a series of perfect hurricane kicks, each one crossing multiple feet in distance. "Ugh, just watching this is pissing me off."

"What?" Rey glanced to the side to see a cold judgmental stare from Phasma, directed at Jeremiah's back. "Why? He hasn't done anything wrong."

Phasma scoffed. "He's not taking this seriously, is what he is."

Brickface blocked an incoming axe kick with both hands, something wicked and calculating starting to show behind his eyes. Rey repressed the urge to shiver.

"Shit!" her companion swore. "This isn't going to end well."

"What are you talking-"

A foot came up, not that fast, and not that hidden. Jeremiah, with his stance as perfect as a model, was still stuck re-chambering from his previous kick, which had once again failed to strike true.

Brickface, on the other hand, had stepped into Jeremiah's range; he was outside the range of Jeremiah's guard, and just far enough away for his own single devastating strike. Brickface's spinning hook kick came up from the ground and  _slammed_  into Jeremiah, the heel crunching audibly with his chin. It made a distinct and audible sound, similar to a stick of wood snapping, but it was far harder than anything Rey had seen, and genuine fear for her not-quite friend but not-quite acquaintance seeped in to her chest.

Jeremiah stumbled and regained his stance. He wobbled for one second, two seconds,  _three seconds,_  and then collapsed.

People immediately started shouting on both sides, making the previous rabble-rabble seem pathetic in response. Luke forewent all propriety and immediately leapt to his student's aid, practically shoving the referee out of the way as he started looking over Jeremiah.

He was conscious again.

"Sshh," Rey thought she heard Master Luke murmur. "It's alright, you're ok, you're ok."

The referee was conferring with the judges.

Rey remembered to breathe.

And Ben?

Ben looked ready to  _murder_.

"You guys are probably going to lose this round," Phasma said, her voice clinical and detached. "Hell, you'll be lucky if you don't get DQed for what Master Skywalker did, pushing the ref off and all."

On the other side of the ring, Rey saw Poe pull Brickface in close, all previous joviality missing. She could see the stern-looking woman saying things to the both of them, eyes narrowed but not stopping her students from their confrontation.

That bud of annoyance from earlier took root then, and Rey welcomed it like an old friend.

The medics appeared with a stretcher and their toolkits of miracles that could do nothing. Master Luke backed off, barking his report of what happened into the ears of the attendant technicians.

Finally, the judges seemed to reach a conclusion, and the ref pulled off to stand at the center of the ring.

"Winner by forfeit is Team B. Rogue Star Taekwondo gets the round," the ref announced, gesturing to the Poe's side of the ring.

Rey bit her lip, conscious of the tumultuous nature of her own thoughts and of the volatile atmosphere around her Dojang-mates, who'd somehow increased in number as they came to watch the match. Rey thought the call was extremely unfair, but she didn't know enough to dispute it. She could see similar expressions on the face of the people around her.

Pausing the recording, Rey turned to her uninvited companion. "Why are they getting the round? That was clearly excessive force!"

Phasma snorted. "You're new to the tournament scene around here, aren't you?" Rey's hesitation must have shown on her face, because Phasma followed with a pitying sigh. "It's heavily discouraged at this level of competition, but knockouts  _are_  allowed. Technically, if this were a lower belt fight the whole team would be under review, but for Black Belts, practically anything goes so long as it's within the guidelines of the tournament."

"Shouldn't that guy at least be given a yellow card or something?"

"This isn't soccer, kid," Phasma's voice was harsh and cold, "and before you go thinking Mr.-I'm-So-Cool-Watch-Me-KO-This-Kid is getting off scot-free, take another look over there."

Rey looked over at where Phasma was pointing and sure enough, away from the ring, Brickface and Poe's Master was laying into him verbally. She wasn't yelling loudly enough to be overhead, but Rey imagined that had more to do with the cacophony around the ring than the volume of the relatively diminutive Master. Brickface had lost all traces of whatever arrogance he'd had before, and now he just looked unhealthily pale as his worth as a human being was broken down and stomped all over.

"It's not enough," Rey grumbled, turning to see the medics help Jeremiah, sans helmet and gear, walk away from the ring.

"Of course not," Phasma said, still cold, but not hateful, "but he's not your responsibility now, is he? This is that ugly part of Taekwondo that I bet your Master doesn't really tell you about. We are learning how to  _hurt_  people. Shockingly, sometimes we actually do."

Rey deliberated on that thought for a moment. There was truth in that statement. Rey wasn't nearly so angelic as to deny that she hadn't thought of introducing certain people ( _cough cough_ Plutt) to the bad end of her fist since starting Taekwondo. Even so, it was too cynical a thought to settle well with her.

"You know," Rey said, "you're kind of a bitch."

Phasma laughed. "No wonder Ben likes you. Hell,  _I_ like you."

The referee signaled for the next two fighters to line up. Rey stopped her chatting and turned the camera back on. And if she ended up focusing ever so slightly on Ben's broad shoulders, well, that was just her hand jittering, of course.

"How do you know Ben, anyway?" Rey asked, suddenly no longer afraid of the blonde woman who she'd so candidly called a bitch seconds before.

(She was going to worry about that later. When she wasn't mentally and emotionally wrung out from being around so many crazy people at once.)

"We've...known each other for a while."

Rey turned to look at her. Phasma wore a coy half-smile that made Rey's blood run cold.

"They're starting," the blonde pointed out, and dammit if she wasn't right (again).

For what felt like the umpteenth time since meeting her fifteen minutes ago, Rey muttered cruel things about persons of Phasma's likeness, height, and attitude. There was a lot less bite to her thoughts than before, though.

Poe and Ben bowed to each other in the ring, and like a gunshot, the referee signaled for the fight to start.

Logan was fast. Jeremiah was skilled. Brickface even was strong.

Ben was all three and more.

He launched at Poe like a man possessed, his rear leg coming up in a blur and smashing into Poe's guard. Ben's kihap was enough to deafen a small elephant, and demanded retribution for before - for the slight against him and his from the previous round.

Poe's block was solid and well-placed, and it was only him planting his feet firmly that stopped him from being knocked to the ground from the kick. Even so, Rey saw Poe visibly grimace, and whatever else happened that day, Rey had to grant him sheer guts for facing Ben when he was on a rampage.

Ben didn't let up, of course. He followed his roundhouse with more kicks that would knock a grown man out of commission. His legs were a blur of motion as he advanced on Poe. Poe for his part, blocked and dodged the blows admirably, but he made no moves to counter attack.

It stayed like that for ten, maybe fifteen seconds, Ben pressing forward and Poe dodging and blocking an opponent he really shouldn't be facing. Whatever resentment Rey felt towards Poe, she was actually starting to feel a little bad for him. The match was heavily in Ben's favor just by the favor of their body types, and this was not the kind of demonstration that Rey imagined one would want to put on.

"You're thinking Solo's got this in the bag, huh?" Phasma said.

(Phasma really just liked to hear herself talk.)

"I don't see why not." Rey gestured to the one-sided slaughter in front of them, "Ben's up by five points already. Poe might just get shutout at this rate."

"You're looking at the wrong part of the fight again. Try again."

Rey examined Ben with a critical (and experienced) eye. "I don't see it."

"Fine, I'll help you out one more time." Phasma's hand came on Rey's shoulder, grabbing her attention. "Look over there. At the other team's side. What do you see?"

Rey stared at them, trying to figure out Phasma's angle here. "I see Poe's Dojang and teammates."

"Tell me about them."

"Uh, what?"

"Describe them to me. Their physical traits only."

Wondering when this became a kindergarten game of  _spot the weasel,_  Rey decided to comply. The match was turning out to be nothing she hadn't seen before, with Ben dominating for most of a match and the other guy doing his best not to lose too badly.

"Well, they're all almost wearing their dobok. Umm they seem to be a mix of boys and girls. Some of them...have brown hair?"

"Wow." Rey could practically taste the sarcasm in Phasma's tone. "Brilliant observation, genius."

"It'd help if I knew what to look for," Rey contested hotly, her own cheeks burning.

"Their height, shrimp," Phasma's instruction was crisp and clear. "Doesn't something seem off to you?"

Rey squinted at them. "Not really? They all seem normal."

"Look closer."

So Rey did, all the while wondering why she so wanted to impress this not-yet-fully-introduced stranger. But Phasma quickly proved to not be all talk when Rey  _did,_  in fact, notice something off.

"They've got heavyweights," Rey half-asked, half-stated, "but that doesn't make any sense. Poe said that he was fighting up."

 _Why would he fight up if they already had heavyweights?_ her brain asked.

_Because he was betting on the off chance of fighting Ben._

_Why would he do that?_

_Because maybe, -_  Rey's eyes cut over to Poe, who she now realized did  _not_  look worried -  _he thought he could win._

"From the look on your face I see you've got it. Ben's a fantastic fighter," Phasma said, almost solemn, "But he's not the best martial artist."

From her position outside the ring, Rey saw Poe suddenly grin.

Ben didn't seem to notice.

Rey wanted to cry out a warning, but Master Luke was halfway through doing so, and even he was already too late.

Poe crouched, blocking a high-section roundhouse that would have undoubtedly sent him spinning. He bent his legs just far enough to provide power, and then he  _sprung._  His back leg pushed off the ground and provided him with the extra power needed, and his front leg pistoned into Ben's chest in the fastest scissor kick Rey had ever seen. It met with a resounding smack and Ben stumbled back, gasping awkwardly and dropping his arm guard.

There was a small murmur as her Dojang mates muttered in surprise. Poe had just scored a point.

Ben took a breath, and started kicking at Poe again.

Rey frowned. Was it her, or was he slower?

Poe weaved through the kicks almost casually, and then turned aside from a particularly vicious kick aimed at his ribs. He used the momentum from the turn and planted a terrifyingly strong mule kick into Ben's chest. Again.

Another point for Poe.

Rey looked at the scoreboard. Ben was 7-2. He had the advantage. If he just fought defensively Rey  _knew_  that he would sweep the round and then maybe even the rest of the tournament.

She also knew that was never going to happen.

Half-time was called. Ben and Poe bowed out and went to their respective chairs.

Rey excused herself from Phasma and went over to offer some encouragement. Instead, she overheard the tail end of Master Luke's advice.

"-know you're playing into his hands, don't you?"

"Yes sir." Ben was breathing hard - far harder than Rey had ever seen him do outside a particularly exhausting and demanding workout (and she should know, she certainly paid enough attention).

"You're going to keep doing it no matter what I say, aren't you?"

"Probably, sir."

Master Luke sighed and looked every one of his (indeterminate amount of) years. "I know you probably don't like hearing this, but you're just like your father. He also has a thick head."

Drinking from his water bottle, Ben seemed to consider this. "If it helps, I think it's brain damage on his part."

"More like genetics on yours," Master Luke groused, "You're the reason I'm gray, boy. Now get going. Try not to hurt yourself too bad."

Groaning, Ben stood up from the chair, rolling his head from side to side. "I'll beat him, Master Luke."

"Not if you keep listening to your pride, you won't."

Ben caught Rey's eye and winked. "Don't worry, I've got a plan."

He walked back out onto the mat.

Master Luke just shook his head. "Damn Solo's. Why don't you go back to recording, Rey," Luke rolled his eyes as he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at Ben who was warming himself back up. "Something tells me he's going to want to watch this fight when it's over."

Nodding meekly, Rey excused herself and found her spot in the corner. Phasma still stood there, looking bored and maybe even a little annoyed.

"Let me guess," Phasma started when Rey arrived, "Solo's going to try and meathead his way through this."

"He has a plan," Rey said defensively. "He can still win."

"Not if his plan involves breathing," Phasma said bluntly. "You saw where Poe hit your boy. Tell me you at least know why he hit him there."

Rey rolled her eyes. "The sternum."

"Uh-huh. And what happens if you hit someone there hard enough?"

"Uh." Rey thought back to first few lectures Master Luke gave to her and Rose as White Belts. "You get the breath knocked out of you."

"Sure. If by that you mean,  _you can't breathe for your life because you feel like your chest caved in_."

Rey blanched.

"Solo's good, kid, but he's also predictable. And it looks like Poe learned how to take advantage of that. By making him forget what oxygen tastes like."

"He still has to hit Ben there," Rey defended. "And Ben's ready now. You'll see."

Phasma looked at her with something akin to pity. "Look, I know he's pretty, but Solo's not that smart. Or rather, he  _is_  that smart. He's just too proud to do anything other than what he was trying before."

In the ring, the fighters once again bowed to each other. Rey saw the referee drop his hand, signaling the start of the fight.

"You'll see," Rey said, deciding to leave it off there, both because there was something frustrating and about her tone and because she was too caught up in the revelation that Phasma found Ben  _pretty_. "Ben will win."

* * *

Rey was slumped grumpily in the bus seat when Ben started elbowing her.

"Kid, I still don't see what you're so upset about.  _I'm_ the one who lost."

After a few moments, Rey turned in her seat to face him. They'd left the competition a bit late, and it was dark on the bus, but she could just barely make out the amused smile Ben was giving her.

"It's just…" Rey frowned, "Phasma. She was all like ' _Ben's predictable and Poe's going to win'_ and I told her she was wrong and…" she sighed. "Well, you didn't exactly prove me right."

Ben chuckled. "Is that what's got you all pissed off? Phasma?" He grinned, and shook his head. "Well, she's definitely good at that."

"She...uh…" Rey hesitated, wondering how obvious it would be if she straight-out asked Ben if they'd dated. She settled on something a bit more vague. "She's... _interesting_."

"Mmm, I guess that's one word. I'm sure Hux could help you come up with a few others."

"Hux?"

"Yeah," Ben nodded, "they used to date. When we were in college. I mean, I knew Phasma a bit before that because we always ran into each other at competitions, but I didn't really get to know her until she dated Hux."

Rey was not above admitting that she was relieved. At least, she'd admit it to herself. Obviously not to Ben. She'd  _never_  admit that to Ben.

"You have weird friends."

Ben blinked for a moment, and then said, "Yeah, I guess you can be pretty weird."

"Hey!"

Rey playfully smacked his arm, "I am not!" she giggled. "Take it back."

"Nope, you said it yourself, I have weird friends."

"I meant Hux and Phasma!"

"Well you should have been specific!" He laughed.

You are such an ass-"

A voice from the back of the bus interrupted, angry-whispering at them, " _Hey,_ some of us are trying to sleep! Would you guys keep it down?"

Ben rolled his eyes, but sighed, and said quietly, "That's not a bad point, actually. We should probably get some sleep. We won't be getting back until really late."

Rey groaned, and attempted to adjust herself into a more comfortable position in the bus seat, shivering in the process. The bus was uncomfortably cold, and sitting next to the window didn't make it any better. Her hoodie was warm, but not  _that_  warm.

After a few moments of her quiet grumbling, Rey jumped a bit when a fleece jacket covered her.

She glanced questioningly over at Ben, who shrugged. "You looked cold. Get some sleep, kid."

Rey gave him a smile, and happily curled up under the fleece. A few hours later, she woke up with her head resting against his shoulder, wishing the bus ride had taken longer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A birthday, a red stripe, and an argument gone right.
> 
> Taekwondo/Fighting Terms:
> 
> Hogu - Chest protector. It's this miserable bulky thing that wraps around your chest and over your shoulders, then ties in the back, and I absolutely hate wearing one until someone kicks me and I remember what it's good for.
> 
> Rechambering - So, before each kick, you "chamber"...basically, you prepare your leg to kick (often this is just bringing your thigh up so that your knee is at a 90 degree angle). After chambering, you'd normally say, pivot and kick out from your hip (in the case of a roundhouse kick). Rechambering is after your kick, bringing your leg back into that chambering position rather than putting it back down on the floor.
> 
> DQ'ed - Disqualified
> 
> KO - Knock out
> 
> Shutout - Basically, if one person in a spar gets to ten points and their opponent hasn't scored any, the spar is over and the person with ten points wins.
> 
> Scoring in sparring - This is a little complicated, but basically, a well placed kick to someone's body gets one point, a head-shot is two points, and a spinning head-shot is three points. For colored-belts, scoring is usually done manually by many judges, but Black Belts are often made to wear these special electronic devices over their gear. The devices register when hits are made.


	12. Blue Belt/Red Stripe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter before Red Belt (usually when a Taekwondoian is considered a "senior").
> 
> This level (Blue Belt/Red Stripe) will be contained within this one chapter because we have some intense stuff to get to. Enjoy the fluff while you can.
> 
> We've updated the chapter count after making a couple of changes to the story outline (nothing major). Thebuildingsnotonfire is really good at adding flavor to every chapter and he's suggested some plotlines that would fit in well, so this is probably going to be a lot longer than we'd originally planned.
> 
> ...everybody likes slowburn? Right?
> 
> [Please don't hate us but this is going to be slooooow]

The heat and humidity of summer hit Coruscant hard, and Rey was overwhelmingly grateful for the strong air conditioner in Maz's diner. She was pretty sure that if it weren't for that she would have dissolved into a puddle of sweat and hair buns by her third day at the diner. She'd been informed that the hospital was ending its volunteer program in favor of offering unpaid internships to local college students, and when Maz offered her an actual  _paying_  job, Rey couldn't have jumped on it faster.

The problem was, at some point Maz had receded further into her own personal brand of insanity and decided to up the "50s diner" vibe. It might not have been such a bad thing if it weren't for the damned roller skates Rey was strapping to her feet. The diner wasn't opening for another half an hour, and she had until then to figure out how on earth she'd manage her third day wearing them.

"Maz," she called out after falling for the fourth time, "Are you sure these are absolutely necessary?"

The woman just chuckled, said something about building character, and went back into the kitchen. Rey wondered why building character had to  _hurt_  so much.

After an exhausting thirty seconds of trying to stand back up, Rey took a deep breath to calm herself before she ended up saying what she  _really_  thought of Maz's decision to have her on skates. She was reasonably certain Maz had mentioned something about an authentic 50's style dress and Rey didn't want to tempt fate.

She'd forgone her buns for the day, and her hair was pulled back into a playful high ponytail that swung from side to side whenever she managed to skate a whole ten seconds without falling or flailing. At the moment, her uniform (minus the skates) was actually - _dare she say it_ \- cute. She wore tight black high-waisted shorts that Maz referred to as "pin-up shorts" (whatever that meant) and a black and white gingham button-up blouse that tied in the front at her waist. Rey had been doubtful when Maz suggested the uniform, but she was glad she'd given it a shot. Thanks to Taekwondo, she'd built up some serious leg muscle, and after seeing herself in the high-waisted shorts, she finally understood what Paige had said about her waistline.

Rey looked down at the skates and sighed. Well, the uniform couldn't be completely perfect.

It was going to be a  _long_  day.

* * *

By 2 PM, the diner was finally blissfully empty, and Rey's legs were screaming for mercy. The roller skates were now a large part of her own personal hell, and her balance on them hadn't improved much. Thankfully she'd only tripped once, but every time she moved it was like walking through a minefield. She thought that her training in Taekwondo would help her balance, but no, that would have been too easy.

She'd just finally sat down to rest her legs when the bell above the door jingled, indicating someone's arrival. She sighed, and looked up, only to see Ben watching her with an eyebrow raised, wearing a far too amused expression.

"Since when do you work here?" he asked, walking over to where she sat.

It was like the world was conspiring against her. Of course Ben had to walk in when she felt like collapsing. Rey moved to stand up, completely forgetting that she had wheels strapped to her feet. She slipped, and flailed for a moment, assuming she was about to fall backward before Ben reached out and caught one of her hands in his, pulling her to him so he could wrap an arm around her waist to help steady her.

Whatever opinions Rey had about the skates were washed away by the tidal wave of thoughts that included " _oh my_ " and "this is niiiice."

Ben chuckled, his voice a powerful tenor that absolutely did  _not_  send goosebumps up her arms (it was the A/C. Obviously). He called out to Maz, "Are you sure you want Rey on skates? I think the kid needs some lessons first."

Rey smacked his chest for that, but made no motion to pull away from him. She was enjoying the way his hand was still splayed across her lower back. "I'm not  _that_  bad."

"I'm sure you aren't. Just as I'm sure Maz still has every plate she started with this morning."

Maz chose this moment to chime in. "She owes me two mugs, actually."

Rey looked away, and wondered if some secret Taekwondo technique to disappear into thin air existed, because  _God_.

Ben smirk turned thoughtful for a moment. Then, suddenly, he smiled broadly (and, on a completely unrelated note, Rey's awareness of his arm around her suddenly quintupled).

"I know exactly what we're going to do for your birthday. I'll teach you how to skate."

"You know how?" Rey eyed him doubtfully. Ben was very balanced in Taekwondo, but that was more the leonine grace of a predator, and not the solid and grounded control that skating required.

"Well, no," he admitted, "but it can't be  _that_  hard, right?"

"Oh, yeah,  _that_ will be hilarious," Rey teased. After a moment she reluctantly pulled away from him and made her way to the register. "I'm guessing you're here to pick up the order Luke called in?"

He nodded, and pulled out his wallet. "How much was it?"

Rey snorted. "Oh, absolutely not. Do you have any idea how many of my lunches you've paid for? I've got this."

Ben frowned and grabbed some bills from the fold, "No deal, kid."

She refused to take his money, and after a few moments of them glaring at each other, Maz came out of the kitchen and started laughing (well, maybe more like cackling, but that may have been Rey's opinion of the skate-imposing witch coloring her perception). "Give it up, Solo. This one's stubborn."

Seeing that his patented glare wasn't working on the two of them, Ben finally gave in. "Fine. But I'm paying for skate rentals. And ice cream, if you want it. What time does your shift end? We can go when you get out, if that's okay."

"You can pick her up in an hour," Maz answered. Rey was a bit too dizzy at realizing what was happening to answer.

"Okay," he nodded, then smiled at Rey. "See you in an hour."

She was pretty sure she didn't breathe again until after he left.

Maz snapped her out of it by literally snapping her fingers in front of Rey's face. Rey jerked, lost her balance, clung to the counter before she fell, and scrambled awkwardly on her skates for a few seconds until she regained her footing. Beside her, Maz had the decency to not snicker (too much).

"Stop mooning over Ben Solo and help me clean up."

" _Maz!"_ Rey gasped, "I was  _not_ mooning over him!"

The older woman shook her head, laughing at Rey. "You've been gawking at that boy since you first came here and he stole half your fries."

Rey's cheeks burned, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Maz looked at her, distinctly unimpressed with the weak defense, before scoffing and walking back into the kitchen.

Rey imagined a pair of horns and a pitchfork would have been an appropriate addition to the sight of her boss' retreating form.

* * *

While graceful may have been a word to describe Ben's poomse performances, it was most certainly  _not_ a word Rey could use to talk about the way he skated.

If it could even be called that. Ten minutes after putting the skates on, and the poor guy still hadn't let go of his death-grip on the wall railing.

"You know," he said nervously, "I'm starting to think this was a bad idea."

He'd already fallen twice, and Rey was doing her best to hold back the cackle - yes,  _cackle_  - that kept threatening to slip past her lips. Vindication felt sweet and cool and more than a little intoxicating. "Oh come on," she teased, "it's not  _that_ bad."

She wasn't making it up - the floor of the roller rink was actually much easier to skate on than that of Maz's diner. At some point in the few days she'd worked for Maz, she must have picked something up, because she wasn't that terrible while skating on a proper floor, especially when she didn't need to carry a tray of food.

Noticing the budding panic in Ben's eyes, Rey sighed, and offered her hand out to him. He'd never let her help him unless she phrased it just the right way.

"Alright, how about we help each other then? We'll stick to the edge and hold on to the wall the whole time."

After another bout of simultaneous calamity and hilarity, Ben took a breath and stood as still as he could "Maybe I should wait here."

Rey shook her head. "Nope, not happening."

She grabbed his hands and miraculously managed to skate backward for a moment, pulling him away from the wall he was so desperately clinging to. "Rey, I'm really not sure about this," he warned, scrambling a bit, and already starting to lose his balance.

Rey glanced down and saw the problem immediately, "Stop locking your knees. That's making it worse."

He frowned, probably annoyed that she wasn't letting him go, but did as she instructed. " _I_  was the one who was supposed to teach you."

Rey snorted. "If I listened to you, I'd end up with bruises on my ass. I can't believe you thought this would be easy."

"It looks easy," he shrugged. The suaveness was ruined by his sudden pallor as his balance wavered again.

She rolled her eyes at him. "That's what you get for being so cocky," she laughed. "I still can't believe you thought you could teach me how to skate when you've never even skated yourself."

"Shut up, Rey," Ben said. He shook his head, but smiled down at her, and let her guide him around the rink.

It was a good thing he was too focused on not falling, otherwise he'd see the stupid megawatt smile on her face from when he said her name.

* * *

Rey arrived at the Dojang early that Sunday morning, a few weeks after her sixteenth birthday. She was determined to get a few hours of practice in before Promotion started, and the Dojang was almost always empty in the mornings, so it was Rey's favorite time to go over the things she thought still needed work.

She was halfway to the locker rooms when she noticed Ben sitting silently in the corner, brooding like a far-too-pretty gargoyle.

"Are you nervous?"

Ben opened his eyes and looked up from where he sat, cross-legged on the floor of the Dojang. He seemed flustered and more quiet than normal. It didn't take a genius to see that he  _was_  nervous. Ben didn't usually let others approach him when he had his eyes closed.

"No, not really."

Rey was tempted to roll her eyes or maybe give him a hard time, but the guy looked  _exhausted_ , so she decided to go easy on him.

"You started testing yesterday, right?"

He shook his head. "Friday. Master Luke had me testing from 7AM to noon so he could still hold afternoon classes. I tested with the rest of the seniors yesterday, too."

Rey's eyes went wide. " _Three days of testing?_ "

"Master Luke said he wanted to make it four, but the timing didn't work out, according to him."

"Four days?!" Rey balked at even the thought of two days, let alone double that. "Is that normal?"

"I...don't know." Ben looked pensive. "I've never seen anyone test for third dan."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

He gave an uneasy nod. "I think today will be a bit easier. I'm helping Master Luke grade everyone, so I think I'll just have to test on sparring, poomse, breaking, and self-defense."

She smiled nervously, and sat in front of him with her legs folded under her, just like she did on her first night at the Dojang.

The corners of his lips tugged up slightly into a small smile. "What about you, kid? Nervous?"

Back to  _kid_  again, she couldn't help but note. Whatever, she was just glad he was even capable of talking. He looked ready to keel over. Faced with him like this, her own jitters seemed rather pedestrian.

"Eh," she shrugged. "It's just a stripe."

Ben chuckled. "Don't let Master Luke hear you say that. I did once. Psychopath had me waxing cars and painting fences for weeks." He shook his head ruefully. "Called it  _classical training_."

"Better not let him hear you call him that. Respect and all." Rey's voice was soft as she teased him.

"He's my uncle. I'm allowed to do that."

Both of them were quiet for a moment and Rey marveled at the calm within the Dojang. With how often there were people screaming, grunting, and even occasionally crying, it was amazing to see it so peaceful.

"So, you nervous?" Ben asked again.

Rey sunk down a bit further into the floor, then pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them close. " _Always_."

"Yeah," he sighed. "Me too."

* * *

Master Luke instructed them to bow out and take a quick ten minute break about  _twenty_  minutes after Rey had hit her limit. The only reason she hadn't collapsed yet was out of pure stubbornness. It's not that she  _couldn't_ spar. It's just that she'd been sparring various partners for over a half an hour in gear and between her burning muscles and the fact that she was pretty sure her dobock was soaked in sweat.. _._ well _,_  she needed the break.

After nearly ripping her sparring gear off, she trudged over to where Rose and Finn were waving to her, and happily accepted the giant bottle full of glorious ice-cold water Rose shoved in her direction in lieu of an actual greeting.

"You're a lifesaver," Rey gasped out, feeling somewhere around bone-weary and mentally numb as opposed to the living death from before.

"Rey, you look  _so cool_  out there," Finn gushed. "I still can't believe you kicked that guy in the head! You're so much shorter than him!"

She glared at the comment on her height, or rather, lack thereof, but accepted the fact that her friend was giving her a compliment. "It wasn't much of a kick. More like a tap. We're really not supposed to fully kick with headshots."

"Tell that to my son," a woman said from behind Rey.

Rey turned to reply, but stopped the minute she saw the woman who'd spoken. She was beautiful, with a familiar warm smile, and chestnut hair that was wrapped around her head in a braided crown.

Everything about her was just recognizable enough to Rey for her to seem familiar, but off enough that she felt new. It was her eyes that had Rey flushing as she realized who the woman was.

"Are...are you Ben's mom?" Rey stammered. Obviously she knew Ben had a mom, but she'd never met her, and Ben was far from talkative, especially when it came to his family.

The woman's eyes practically twinkled, and in an instant, Rey knew she absolutely had to be Luke's sister. "I am," she said, smiling down at Rey. "You must be Rey. Sweetheart, I've heard a lot about you."

Rey blinked. "You have?"

"I knew your grandfather," Leia explained. "My brother's been keeping me updated on how your training's been going. I'm sorry we didn't meet sooner, but I'm usually too busy to come to promotions. I couldn't miss Ben's third degree testing, though."

"You'll probably be here for a few more hours," Rey said apologetically. She always felt a bit bad that guests had to sit through 4-6 hour promotions, and since Ben was going through a more elaborate testing, it was bound to be a long day.

"As long as I don't have to see him spar again, I'll be fine."

Rey winced. As a part of his testing, Ben had to spar two of their dojang-mates at the same time. All three of them had worn gear, but it was a brutal spar, and more than one of them had walked away bleeding. Rey found that she'd barely been able to watch. The three of them had been chatting amicably when they left, though, congratulating each other on beating the crap out of each other, so Rey had to assume things had gone well.

"I didn't like that either," she admitted. "But I think sparring's over. I'm pretty sure we just have poomse and breaking left."

"That's a relief," Leia replied. "So you're friends with Ben?"

She nodded, and felt some of the tension in her gut melt away at the woman's smile.

"I'm glad to see he's keeping himself in better company," Leia leaned in and stage-whispered. "You are far more polite than that boy, Hux."

Rey giggled. She had nothing against the man, but Hux  _was_  odd. He always seemed so suspicious and scrutinizing whenever she was around Ben's apartment. It was a wonder he hadn't yet developed permanent squint-eye.

Before she could properly respond, Luke was calling for everyone to line up. She cast Leia an apologetic look, but the woman just politely shooed her back to the mats.

* * *

The sound of a couple dozen voices bellowing, followed by that of boards breaking was both welcome and familiar to Rey by now. Poomse had proceeded without too much trouble, barring a pair of Orange Belts who had completely forgotten Taegeuk Il Jang. Master Luke hadn't been impressed with that. He'd made them do it at least another six times, alongside the white belts, and then alongside Ben, who Rey was reasonably certain had eviscerated whatever confidence they had in their own forms when he performed.

(At the end though, Master Luke had smiled and congratulated them. Rey could have sworn the girl of the pair had happy tears in her eyes after that. Yeah, it didn't make any sense to her either.)

Breaking proceeded as normal. Master Luke, breaking from tradition, had all the colored and black belts sans Ben go ahead with their breaks. Miraculously, no one had any trouble this time around - not even Rey, who had pulled off her turning back kick with barely a sweat (after seeing Poe land one on Ben during sparring, she'd been adamant about mastering it).

Then the white belts lined up. Master Luke had given them his usual lecture, about how this was the first step, about how he  _knew_  that everyone there could do it. No matter how many times Rey heard it, she was always impressed with him. Master Luke was no master orator, but he spoke plainly and from the heart, and that kind of honesty and pure confidence was emboldening, especially for the fidgety white belts and their untested spirits.

Rey blinked and cupped her ear. She was holding a board for a particularly loud white belt, who'd practically belted a foghorn as he utterly destroyed the board she'd been holding for him.

"Congratulations," she said, handing the pieces left in her hands to him. The boy was maybe thirteen, with an unfortunate amount of acne and untamed hair. He looked ecstatic as he took the pieces, bowing profusely and taking the boards and bowing again.

She heard similar exchanges happening all around her, people's voices starting to rise in their excitement, until Master Luke called out, "Kuman!"

Everybody hushed. The excitement wasn't gone, just put on pause for a time when it was socially acceptable to freak out over how  _really_  cool it all was.

"Did everybody break?" Master Luke asked, meeting several people's gazes with his own beaming smile.

About two rows over, Rey heard someone - a girl - say, "Umm, no sir."

Master Luke looked over the crowd. "Hmm, who was that? Speak up."

"S-sorry sir," came the voice, "I d-didn't break it."

People turned to look at who'd spoken.. From Rey's vantage point, she saw it was a thin, waifish girl with blonde hair in a ponytail.

"Miss Lynn," Master Luke breathed, "so it didn't break, eh? Hmm, how is your hand?"

"F-fine, sir." She swallowed and looked down at the ground. "My hand is fine, sir."

"I see." Like always, Master Luke didn't share what he 'saw'. "How many times did you try it?"

"...ee times."

"What was that?"

"Th-three times, sir!"

Master Luke looked skeptical. "And your hand is still 'fine'?"

Everyone shifted awkwardly.

"Miss Kenobi!" he called out suddenly, and Rey nearly jumped out of her skin. "Front and center!"

Like a proper little doll, Rey was already calling out an affirmative before she even realized she was moving. By the time she stood in front of him, back ramrod straight as she bowed, her mind had already conjured up the only reason he could be calling her, and it made her want to throw up.

"Please help Miss Lynn with her break," Master Luke said kindly, the words driving pinpricks of terror into her soul.

She wanted to say "I'm not ready, sir, maybe someone else should" but somewhere between her brain and her mouth it came out as "Yes, sir."

And then she was taking the girl to the side, the point of no return three exits back on this highway of responsibility. Miss Lynn looked ashamed, afraid, and angry, and Rey felt some of her own nervousness melt into sympathy. The whole reason Master Luke had the white belts do all their breaks at once was to make it so no one single student was singled out. That group energy, that spiritual  _oomph_  that one got was a real and empowering thing, and it served as both sword and shield for them, raising everyone's confidence while also making sure no one felt isolated and judged.

Rey had seen white belts cry when they didn't break their board after numerous tries. She hoped Lynn didn't cry. That would send all kinds of panicky signals to her brain and Rey did not know how to comfort sad people, short of shoving Rose on them (which she guessed would not be okay in this situation).

"Right," Rey said when they were a little ways away, "Hi. I'm Miss Kenobi. I mean, Rey. My first name is Rey. My last name is Kenobi. That's why he called me that. Kenobi, that is."

' _Oh my God, why. Why brain, why?'_

The white belt stared at her from beneath way too wide blue eyes and what looked like the filmy beginnings of a tear. "N-nice to meet you," she answered, voice wobbly, "I-I'm Jessica."

"Oh cool, we've got a Jessika too." Rey winced. That sounded like she was a collectible. "I mean, one of the brown belts is called Jessika."

Jessica Lynn didn't say anything. She just stared at Rey with broken hope and glassy eyes.

"Let's go to it then," Rey said, forcing some cheer she didn't feel into her own voice, "show me your form."

Upon seeing the motion, Rey frowned. "Do it again." She felt herself slip into a kind of calm sureness that came with the experience of something she'd done before. Jessica did her routine again. "Your form's fine."

Master Luke was giving everyone a lecture in the main area. Seeing him set off a spark in her head. "Do it again. Faster."

"W-What?" Jessica seemed confused.

"I want you to show me how fast you're hitting it," Rey stated confidently.

"This i-is how fast I'm going."

"But that's nothing!" Rey exclaimed, "You might as well hug it for all the damage you're doing!"

Jessica looked away, and said in a small voice, "I-I'm scared."

Whatever indignation Rey had mustered washed away. She really was afraid. Rey didn't ask of what, as that seemed too personal a question, but she could guess. Afraid to hit the board, because then it'd hurt. Afraid to try and fail, because then it'd be embarrassing. Maybe even afraid to succeed, because then she'd have to do this again in the future if she kept at it. Afraid, afraid, afraid. It was a song and dance that Rey knew well, and one that Unkar reminded her of whenever he got the chance.

But Jessica wasn't Rey.

"Listen," Rey said, coming in close and wrapping an arm around the girl, "I know it's scary, but it's not impossible. Heck, I did it, and look at me," Rey winked, "I'm a shrimp."

It was true. Even though Rey was very fit, Jessica was still a couple of inches taller than her. It was honestly a little annoying how Rey, as a higher belt, still had to look up to meet several of the white belts eyes. She felt like there should have been some ancient Taekwondo secret to fixing that. Like stilts, or something.

Jessica fixed her with a morose stare. "I can't."

"You can."

"No, I  _can't_."

"Yes, you  _can_ ," Rey insisted, her congeniality tapering off and turning into annoyance. "But you have to be prepared for it to suck. Taekwondo isn't  _easy_. It's not something you just pick up and stop at the drop of a hat. You think I haven't hurt myself doing all this stuff? I once saw someone break their foot on someone's kneecap, and keep going because they were just that stubborn."

Of course, that someone had been Rey, but she wasn't going to admit to that because honestly she still felt it was a little lame to kick someone and end up hurting herself. That or funny.

Rey took a deep breath to keep going. "You have to be ready for it to hurt at some point Jessica. Things aren't always going to be safe and happy and sparkles and unicorns."

Jessica's mopey look had taken the turn to irritated. "I'm not six you know."

"Well, you sure as hell are acting like it," Rey snapped, finally realizing the kind of hole she was digging herself into, but too late to stop it, "Pain sucks. Life sucks. Taekwondo can suck too. But you're not going to get better if you just stop here."

"Hehem." A voice interrupted.

"Meep!"

Rey turned (a bit embarrassed by the noise she'd made) to face Master Luke, who had come up behind her. "I said help her, Miss Kenobi, not moralize her."

"Um!" Rey tried for words, but found her brain had taken a sudden and unwelcome vacation in the face of coming up with  _something_  for Master Luke that wouldn't worsen her situation. "Um! Um!"

"Hmph, I swear, sometimes I think I need to send you kids to a self-help seminar," Master Luke grumbled, "why'd I get stuck with all the moody ones?"

Rey opened her mouth and said something that maybe sounded vaguely Finnish.

He looked past her. "Are you ready, Miss Lynn?"

From behind her, Rey heard Jessica let out a deep breath. "Yes, sir."

His grin was terrifying. "Excellent. Come Miss Kenobi, since you were the one to motivate Miss Lynn so, you'll be holding her board."

They set up in the main area, with people all surrounding them. Rey pulled at her collar. She'd never been the center of attention by the people in her dojang like this, and she found that she definitely did not  _not_  like it.

They took position, with Rey holding the board at approximately Jessica's chest height. Jessica got into her front stance, and started opening and closing her fist as tight as she could each time.

"Are you ready Miss Lynn?" Master Luke asked, and everyone there waited with baited breath.

"Sir, yes sir," Jessica Lynn replied, her voice far away and her mind in some kind of mental trance.

"Let me ask you again, Miss Lynn," Master Luke's voice jumped several decibels and several steps in intensity, " _Are you ready!?_ "

Jessica's eyes focused on the board. "Sir, yes sir!"

"Action!"

"Aaaaagh," Jessica wound up, and Rey saw her cock back her hammerfist one last centimeter-

"Kiyaaaah!"

Rey clenched her cheeks and grit her teeth, but she needn't had worried. Jessica's fist came down like an actual literal hammer,  _shattered_  the board, and then kept going, until her fist had slammed into the wood floor. Rey felt the vibration from the strike in her bones, and she knew instantly that Lynn was going to be feeling that one for a while.

"Yes!" Jessica shouted, leaping to her feet, "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

People around them were roaring, clapping their approval. Jessica stepped over the splinters, and suddenly pulled Rey into a bear-grip level hug that had her wheezing for breath (were they friends now?)

Master Luke stood there, looking like the proudest know-it-all of a Black Belt that Rey had ever seen, and she couldn't help but wonder who else he'd been testing just now.

* * *

A few days after the promotion, Ben invited Rey (and Hux, apparently) to a redo of the dinner he'd originally attempted when he moved in. He'd picked Rey up from work, and she'd been more than happy to leave on her uniform, with the one exception of switching her roller skates out for comfortable flats. Hux hadn't stopped giving Rey weird looks, but knowing Leia had named her a de facto better friend to Ben than him had removed a lot of the awkwardness. At least the fire alarms in Ben's apartment hadn't started going off.

_Yet._

"So what restaurant did this come from?" Hux asked, spinning spaghetti around his fork. "Because I know you didn't cook this."

Ben glared at his friend. "Don't be such an ass. I'm capable of cooking."

"Cooking, sure," Hux agreed. "Cooking something edible?... _eh._ "

Rey giggled as Ben rolled his eyes. "See if I ever cook you dinner again," he grumbled.

"So what was Promotion like? The part I didn't see, I mean." Rey asked, changing the conversation. She hadn't been present for more than half of his testing, and she was dying to know what senior testing involved.

Ben winced. "Let's just say that isn't how I prefer to spend my Fridays and Saturdays."

"What? Kicking ass and working hard?"

"No. Tired and sweaty."

Rey's brain - because clearly her reason had skipped town long ago - immediately supplied her with a healthy and unasked for supply of images of Ben Solo as just that.

 _Pity_.

"Why? What'd he make you do?" Hux asked curiously.

"I can't really say," Ben admitted. "It wasn't anything I couldn't handle, but," he gestured toward Rey, "I don't want to scare the kid off."

Rey scoffed. "I'll be fine. What'd you have to do? It couldn't be any worse than having to break through three inches of concrete."

"It could," Ben muttered. He looked over at Rey, who was clearly still expecting him to describe his testing. "Okay, if I had talked to you as a White Belt and told you everything you'd be tested over during your Blue Belt promotion, you probably would have been really freaked out, right? You might have even quit."

She thought about it for a moment. If she'd found out as a White Belt that she'd eventually be required to do over sixty push-ups and situps under a time limit, perform half a dozen poomse, spar, and more... _yeah_ , she probably would have quit.

"Okay," she said finally. "That's fair."

He nodded. "It was intense, but you work up to it. Like I said, it wasn't anything I couldn't handle."

"So," Hux piped up, "What are you now?"

"Third Dan," Ben said, a little bit of pride seeping into his voice. "If all goes well, in three years I'll be eligible to test for Fourth Dan. If I pass," he smiled softly, "I'd be a Master. I would be able to start teaching classes, and take on my own students at Luke's Dojang, with his approval."

Hux smirked. "So basically, you have three years to learn some patience, then?"

Rey cracked up, and was about to join in on the teasing when the someone knocked on the door. She glanced over at Ben. "Was Master Luke supposed to be here?"

"No," he frowned. "He's having dinner with Amilyn tonight."

Hux chuckled. "They still pretending to be  _friends_?"

Ben ignored him, stood up, and walked hesitantly to the door before opening it. He froze immediately, and Rey leaned back in her chair to see who was at the door.

"Hey kid," she heard a familiar, gruff voice say. It was a little more hoarse than last time, too. "You never called."

Ben just stood there for a minute before finally clearing his throat, "I said I'd  _think_  about calling."

"It's been a year," the man said. "I figure you've thought plenty. 'Bout time the thinking lead to talking."

He pushed past Ben, and Rey took that as a clear sign that Ben was in some sort of shock. She looked up at the older man, who wore the same weathered jacket she'd seen him wear when he walked into the diner. He gave Rey a bit of a half smile. "Hey, I'm Han. We didn't get much of an introduction last time."

"Rey," she said, smiling hesitantly.

Hux had gone pale, and coughed softly, looking between Han and Ben nervously. "Uh...Mr. Solo, nice to see you again," he said quickly, then glanced back at Ben, his eyes wide. "Oh, Ben, I forgot, I've got a…" he looked at the nonexistent watch on his wrist and then his phone, "a date. Tonight. In ten minutes." His laugh was stiff and robotic. "Silly me."

Ben shot him a murderous look that Rey interpreted as  _how dare you leave right now_ , but Hux flew out the door before anyone had a chance to stop him.

Rey was officially curious. Well, curious and a bit wary. If Han's presence had Hux running off like that then there was clearly something she didn't know, and she  _really_  didn't like the looks Ben was giving his father.

"Hux hasn't changed." Han shook with what Rey guessed was amusement. It was a nice look for him, the way his craggly face split for his smile. Humor was good for these Solo men, she decided.

"Why are you here?" Ben demanded.

Han let out an exasperated sigh. "Christ, can't a father just visit his son?"

"Is that what I am to you?" Ben scoffed. "Funny, I thought I was just an inconvenience."

"Can you quit it with that shit?" Han snapped. "I'm serious, Ben. I've missed enough of your life and I'm not going to let you keep pushing me away."

"If I recall correctly," Ben's voice was harsh and rough, "You were the one who pushed me off on Uncle Luke."

"Dammit, kid, would you just-"

Ben hissed and took an advancing step forward. "Stop."

Rey's eyes widened when she looked over at Ben. She'd heard people in the Dojang describe him as scary, or intimidating, and she understood why, but she'd never really felt that way herself. But now...now he looked like he was in a trance, glaring at the older man like he'd glared at that cement he'd almost casually demolished not even a week ago. His shoulders were hunched forward, and his hair hung loose in front of his face, lending him a wild and shaded look. Ben's eyes had gone dark, and they focused solely on Han, who fearlessly stared back.

"Ben!" she said quickly, then promptly realized she had no plan whatsoever for what to do or say if she snapped him out of the way he was acting.  _Shit_. She really needed to think before speaking. "Ben," she repeated, a bit more softly, hoping her interruption would be enough. "Chill out."

He exhaled quickly through his nose and turned his glare to Rey, but his expression softened a bit when he saw the bit of fear and discomfort that crossed her face. He took another breath, and relaxed his shoulders, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Leave," he told Han. His voice was still raw and thick, but considerably less threatening.

Han's face twisted, and Rey's dumb sympathetic heart gave a quiet cry at the look. She saw the ancient resolve settle into the creases of his skin, before he sighed. "Okay, Ben," he took a breath to steady himself. "Can't stop me from trying, though."

"Hmph, that's a new development."

Rey was horrified. "Ben!"

Han stopped with his hand on the doorknob and turned back to look at his son. "You're my kid, and I love you." He shifted awkwardly in place and put his other hand in one of his jacket pockets. "I probably didn't say that enough when you were younger, but I hope you believe it."

Ben kept his eyes on the floor, and didn't look back at Rey until he heard the apartment door close.

Rey could have, but did not stop herself from acting on her first instinct, which was to slap Ben's arm.

"What the  _hell_  was that?" Rey hissed.

"...my dad," he admitted reluctantly. "You know that. He came into the diner last year on your birthday."

"Not him," she snapped. " _You_. What the hell is your problem, Ben Solo?"

His brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

Rey scowled. "Why were you such an asshole? Do you know how lucky you are to have a dad who wants to be part of your life?"

Ben shook his head, and walked over to slump back into his seat at the table.

He sighed, "You don't know the whole story. You wouldn't understand."

Rey winced, and pressed her lips into a thin line. She nodded and said harshly, "Yeah...I guess I wouldn't."

"No, Rey," he ruffled his hair, exasperated. "That's not what I meant."

"But you're right," she mocked. "I wouldn't understand. How could I? You have a set of parents who just want to know you. Mine abandoned me, left me like trash. Like I'm  _nothing_. Like I'm-"

"Don't say that," Ben interrupted, loud enough to scare her a bit. "You're  _not_  nothing. You'll  _never_  be nothing," he continued angrily.

He took a deep, calming breath, and finally looked over at her, his brown eyes softening. He took her hand in his, and she resisted the urge to jerk her hand away and maybe even use it to smack him again for how infuriating he was. Instead, she let him take her hand in his, and looked down at them, now laced together.

"Kid, you're not nothing," he repeated, working his lips together. "Not to me."

It took a minute for the words to register in her mind.

And  _oh_ , how could she go from horribly, shakingly-angry at him to feeling like she was going to melt?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Red Belt. Oof. It'll be in three parts. A word of caution: Red Belt is often thought of as a turning point. It's when things start getting real. Usually by Red Belt a Taekwondoian has been involved for two years or so, and in my experience, it's when most people quit. It's also usually the point when people start figuring their shit out, deciding why they're in Taekwondo, and whether or not they can continue to commit to it.
> 
> For Rey, it'll be...difficult. Yeah. Let's say difficult.
> 
> Taekwondo Terms (let us know if you want more info on anything):
> 
> Dojang - My Master always says that a Dojang is a martial artist's home and family (which is kind of sweet), but technically it's the name for the formal training center.
> 
> Kuman - End/Stop
> 
> Sparring - Sparring with gear (generally arm and shin pads, a chest protector aka Hogu, and a helmet) is pretty much a free-for-all unless you decide to aim for the face or spine. That's pretty frowned upon. In my Dojang people don't usually get gear until Green Belt (or Purple, depending on the person).
> 
> Poomse - There are 8 poomse a color-belt learns as they progress toward becoming a Black Belt. A poomse is basically a pattern of defense and attack moves, and a Taekwondoian's highest poomse should be a good indication of what they know. At this point, Rey would likely know the first six poomse.
> 
> Breaking - Each promotion includes breaking, and it's up to the Master to choose a student's breaking technique. Colored Belts usually break pine boards (approx. 1" thick), and Black Belt usually break both pine boards and 1" thick concrete slabs. As mentioned in this chapter, Ben was testing for his third dan/third degree Black Belt, meaning he had to break three stacked 1" concrete slabs. You get one for each dan (testing for 1st dan = break 1 slab, testing for 2nd dan = break 2 stacked slabs, etc).
> 
> Third Dan/Fourth Dan/etc. - When a colored belt first tests for Black Belt, they are testing for their first degree Black Belt, or their first dan. The terms are interchangeable. Usually a student needs to spend a year testing as a first degree Black Belt before they're eligible to test for the second degree/second dan. Then they usually have to spend two years testing as a second degree/second dan before they're eligible to test for third degree/third dan. So basically, as of this chapter (Ben's third dan test) Ben's likely spent almost six years testing and promoting as a Black Belt. It'll be at least three more years before he'd be eligible to promote to fourth degree/fourth dan (which is when someone is usually considered a Master).
> 
> Oh and...the whole "kick someone and end up hurting herself" comment? Yeah. That was me (AttackoftheDarkCurses). That's how thebuildingsnotonfire and I met when I was an Orange Belt. Met, not started dating. It took me nearly three years to date him after that and I may or may not have been a bit afraid of him for a while afterward. So, thanks for adding that in, you asshole (you're not actually an asshole, I love you, but you suck just a little bit).
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 



	13. Red Belt, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick reminder. Rey's got an abusive situation going on at home, and it's going to be relevant in the Red Belt chapters. I don't think it's graphic, but I'm not easily triggered so I can't really speak for everyone. Any abuse she deals with is 100% NOT sexual but I wanted to remind everyone just in case. 
> 
> We mentioned this in the last chapter, but we wanted to mention it again - Red Belt is often thought of as a turning point and we've definitely made it one in this story. A Red Belt promotion is when things start getting real. Usually by Red Belt a student has been involved for about two years, and in my experience it's when most people quit. It's also usually the point when people start figuring their shit out, deciding why they're in Taekwondo, and whether or not they can continue to commit to it. As of this chapter, Rey's still at Blue/Red Stripe, but her Red Belt testing will (obviously) take place during one of the Red Belt chapters.
> 
> We're going to end up splitting Red Belt into four parts. Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter - these four Red Belt chapters take place mostly over just a few days and they make up the end of Act I. I think they make a nice mini-arc for the story, so we're taking our time on them. Parts 3 and 4 are basically done (minus some editing), but Part 2 (the next chapter) is a doozy and might take a bit longer to wrap up. Feel free to check in with me on Tumblr (link at the end of this chapter) or in comments here and I'll be more than happy to give you status updates/ETAs.
> 
> Also, here's a shameless plug since we seem to have a few Dresden fans reading. If anyone wants to read a cool Dresden/OUAT crossover, check out:  
> [ Curse Break](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7442728/chapters/16909345/)
> 
> It's a fic thebuildingsnotonfire has been writing and he'll be posting more once I'm not demanding so much of his time on this fic.

_Red Belt or Sash: Red signifies the red-hot heat of the Sun as a plant continues growing toward it. Just as a plant grows slowly toward the Sun, a Red Belt student learns to be more cautious with their knowledge and physical abilities. Red is a sign of danger, and the Red Belt becomes more dangerous with their knowledge and abilities._

* * *

Summer was almost over, much to Rey's dismay. School was starting back up in less than two weeks, and while normally she'd have been thrilled for a reason to spend all day, five days a week, away from home, she now found that she'd rather be working for Maz, or picking up extra lessons at the Dojang.

That said, Rey couldn't stop herself from groaning as she walked in for the start of her shift. Master Luke had made them do suicide runs back and forth in the Dojang, and then topped it off with indefinitely timed sparring rounds. Her body creaked and ached like it belonged to someone three times her age as she sat down in a booth. She started strapping on her roller skates before customers began filtering in. After an entire summer, she'd become fairly proficient with them, and instead of regularly owing Maz for three or four dishes or mugs by the end of each week, she was down to maybe one a week. It was progress.

She heard the bell chime, and glanced over at the door. The diner didn't open for another twenty minutes.

"I'm sorry, we aren't ope-"

Rey stopped and blinked at the man who'd just walked in. He wore the same leather jacket she'd seen him in the last two times, and his gray hair was peppered with flecks of brown that refused to relent.

"Don't worry about this one, Rey," Maz chuckled. "He's welcome anytime."

Han gave Maz what could only be a routine and probably patented smirk before looking back at Rey. He stared at her for maybe a second before he inclined his head in a respectful nod.

"Hey kid."

"Uh, hi," she answered, a bit uncomfortable. She hadn't had much of a chance to talk to Han directly in the two times she'd met him, both events marred by the chasm that existed between him and Ben. He seemed nice enough, but it was hard to judge that amidst the daytime drama and ego that arose whenever the two of them were in the same room.

Han walked over to the booth and took the bench across from her. "Look, kid," he sighed. "I should apologize. I think that's two meals I've interrupted now," he muttered.

"It's okay," Rey said quickly, standing up to grab him a menu. "Don't worry about it."

He chuckled when she handed him a menu, and shouted to Maz, "I'll have my usual," before handing the menu back to Rey.

"You have breakfast yet?"

"Yes," Rey answered quickly. A low and audible growl came from her stomach. Okay, so she may have skipped her usual toast this morning.

"That don't sound like breakfast," Han pointed out, dark eyes glimmering. "That sounds like someone doesn't want to talk to me."

Something about that cocky look in his eyes tweaked her something fierce. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she snapped, and then felt guilty, because this was a customer, and even worse, this was Ben's  _father_. She stood up to leave. Staying there was not going to make the situation better.

Han rolled his eyes. "Then why don't you shut up and sit down, firecracker?"

Rey pursed her lips to stop the first thing she wanted to say from coming out of her mouth. Instead, she settled for a brief and waspish, "Don't call me that."

"Alright, alright," Han conceded, hands up, and looking as unrepentant as a weasel. "Just making small talk with my son's friend."

"Yeah well, you suck at it," Rey delivered, before her brain finally grabbed the reins and dosed her with a heavy dose of  _What the hell?_  and  _You are so getting fired_.

Maz arrived then, with two mugs of coffee and a stack of pancakes larger than Rey's face. "Girlie, sit your ass down before I sweep those wheels from under you again. Don't make me get my broom."

Rey paled. Maz had thought she'd help Rey improve her balance on the wheels by having her try and escape the mad biddy as she tried to whack her with a broom. She was fairly sure that was against several workers laws, but Maz had just cackled and whacked her  _harder_.

(It helped, but Rey'd be damned if she ever let the psychopath learn that.)

So, Rey sat back down at the table and did her best not to stare at Han as the man devoured two pancakes under a small waterfall of maple syrup.

Oh, they were blueberry. Maz's blueberry pancakes were the  _best_.

"Well," Han gruffed after wiping a sliver of syrup off his cheek, "are you going to keep staring or are you going to join me? It's rude to reject your host's food, you know."

"But I work here."

Han waved her protest aside. "Details."

"Girlie," Maz chimed in, "if you skimp out on breakfast I'll be running you so hard you won't be able to moon over that boy of yours cuz your eyes'll be hurtin'!"

Rey squeaked and rushed to put Han's food on the plate in front of her.

She hesitated to take a bite, but Han's charming smirk won over in the end. Though she'd never admit it to Ben, she was having a tough time figuring out which parent he resembled more closely.

She took the seat across from him, and drummed her fingers nervously on the table. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Well," he sighed, slinging an arm over the top of the booth, "you're friends with Ben, right?"

Rey nodded.

After a moment, Han asked, "How's he doing?"

"He's good," she said, surprised but not displeased. It wasn't exactly what she'd expected Han to ask, but at least the topic he'd picked was easy to talk about. "Really good, I think. He's a third degree Black Belt now."

"That's what Leia said," Han smiled. "That's good. Do you think he's happy?"

Rey frowned. "I don't see him  _that_  often. He's really serious whenever we're training, but I guess that's normal. When it's just us, or us and Hux, hanging out he seems happy. Sometimes we get dinner or see a movie with Luke, and...yeah, I think he's happy."

Han nodded, seeming relieved.

"Thanks, kid," he said as Maz dropped off a classic breakfast plate of eggs, bacon, and toast (seriously, how much could he pack away?). "I like to check in on him, and you've probably noticed he doesn't like to talk to me."

Part of Rey wanted to remark with a "No, really?" but she stopped herself. Han was a bit of a jerk, but he reminded her of Ben, and he had that same wounded deer look that Ben got when he thought no one was around to see him brood (Ben Solo brooded like a young adult novel's main love interest, and dammit if Rey didn't enjoy it).

Ben hadn't exactly told her what had happened between him and his father, but being present at a couple of their interactions had given her a good amount of insight, and if she'd interpreted things correctly, Han was, at best, an absent father who'd sent his son off to live with his brother-in-law.

Part of her was ready to hate him.

He was also, charming, a bit rude, and genuinely reaching out to his overly proud son.

"I...may have yelled at him after you left," Rey admitted quietly. She sighed. "I thought he could have handled it better. I didn't like seeing him get so angry."

"Well, between my temper and Leia's…" Han snorted. "I'd be surprised if the kid didn't end up with a short fuse." He regarded her with an evaluating eye before smiling.

"He ever tell you about that time we ended up going to the zoo and he almost got in a fight with the chimps?"

Rey opened her mouth made her choke on her drink. "Wait, what?"

Han nodded sagely and rubbed his craggly chin. "Dumb kid thought they were making fun of him."

A giggle escaped her. "How old was he?"

"I dunno', eight or nine I think." Han shrugged. "Probably doesn't help that I kept offering him bananas afterwards."

_Stories from Ben's childhood?_

"You...are  _horrible_ ," Rey concluded after a moment's thought. "Tell me more."

* * *

A couple weeks later, Rey woke up to words of faith and a warmth that transcended temperature.

_You're not nothing. Not to me._

Ben's words were still echoing in her mind nearly a month after he'd said them. Part of her knew she was being cliche, but she couldn't help it. Rey rolled over onto her side and hugged a pillow to her chest, sighing happily.

Her bliss ended quickly, when reality announced its arrival in the form of Unkar banging on the door to the basement. (She refused to call it her room. This hole was  _not_  a room.)

"Wake up, girl!" he yelled. "Get up here!"

Rey snorted in annoyance and looked over at her clock. She didn't have to be at school for another hour. She was still in her first week of Junior year and, after a week that had stretched eons in length, it was finally Friday. All she had to do was deal with Plutt, get through a day of school (hopefully without running into Liam too often, because  _that_  was still awkward), and then she could spend a few hours at the Dojang before having her weekly sleepover with Finn and Rose.

(They were pulling a  _Twilight Zone_  marathon tonight and having crappy Chinese food since Finn's grandmother was going out of town. Best. Friends. Ever.)

"GET UP HERE, NOW!"

She shot out of bed, having completely forgotten that Plutt had called for her. She took a few minutes to throw on the clothes she'd laid out. Thanks to the job with Maz, she'd finally been able to take part in that almost savage ritual that was called "back to school" shopping. After spending the day at the mall with Rose and Paige, she was pretty sure it was just an excuse to get a bunch of new clothes.

After taking a quick look in the mirror, she was thrilled she'd chosen to join them. Rey had never been much for dresses or skirts, but Rose had forced her to try on a cute layered white and dark pink floral skirt, with a plain white t-shirt and a denim jacket with its sleeves rolled up. It was nowhere near what she'd have ever picked (Rey really was more of a jeans and hoodie kind of girl) but she threw the outfit on with a pair of flats Paige had shoved in her direction, and she felt pretty great _._

Rey grabbed her bag and ran up the stairs, beyond thankful that she'd chosen to shower at night, and took a deep breath before she opened the door.

To be met with a  _very_  angry Unkar Plutt.

He glanced down at what she was wearing and practically growled.

"Where's the money coming from, girl?" he spat.

Rey paused. She'd specifically avoided telling Unkar she'd gotten a job working with Maz because she knew he'd demand a cut. She quickly debated between avoidance, deception, and just straight up spitting in his face, and only settled on avoidance by the sheer shitty fact that he had her within arms reach.

"I'm not sure what you mean," she said, ducking past him, heading for the door.  _Head down, shoulders hunched. Smaller targets are harder to grab_. She remembered the bottles he'd thrown before.  _Or hit_.

"Fancy new clothes, a new backpack, books. I'm not stupid!" There was spittle on his mouth and something grossly yellow about his eyes.

Rey reached the door and turned back to him (he didn't like it when she didn't face him when talking). Even so, some bold new part of her prompted her to huff. "M'not really sure what you're talking about."

She turned to leave, and then he lunged for her. His meaty hands grabbed her arm and  _pulled_ , tightening his grip around her forearm like a vice she'd felt so often before. Rey made sure not to cry out in pain (he really hated that), but she couldn't stop the reflexive tears from prickling at her eyes.

She yanked back, struggling to get away from him. "Let me  _go!"_

"I want my share," he demanded. There was something wild and ugly in his face. Something Rey realized she'd never had to deal with before because she'd never been worth the effort.

His hand slid down her arm, clenching at her wrist, and when she tried to wrench it away she felt a sharp pain that took her breath away. Rey continued to try to pull away from him, and even tried a wrist grab release, but Unkar just laughed.

It was a quick, painful, and harsh way to learn that sometimes, a difference in body size mattered more than martial arts knowledge.

However, despite his grotesque nature and body, Unkar was still human, and that meant he had the same basic weaknesses that all humans do.

She was fairly certain she was due to learn this soon, but some clinical and cold part of her figured she knew a little bit about it after seeing Ben practice it for so long.

Rey's free hand stiffened into a half-closed grip -  _tiger claw_ , her mind helpfully supplied - and before Unkar or even she knew what she was doing, she jabbed him in the throat with it, striking him in his Adam's apple with about as much force as she could manage. He choked, reeling back from the blow, and his grip loosened enough that she managed to use a wrist release successfully on her second shot.

"Aaaagh," he cried, reaching up to his neck. His sallow skin was turning an angry, pustule red, "You bi-haaack."

Rey stood there observing him, her soul cold as she watched him struggle to talk. He wasn't going to die, that she knew. She would have had to hit him much harder to crush his throat.

When she spoke, it was with frankness and candor she didn't know she had. "Leave me alone. I'm not giving you any money."

Unkar growled at her, before hacking miserably. He was bent over, one hand on his knee, the other rubbing at his throat. There was a wicked and evil glean in his eye.

Rey turned to leave, but she was ready for when he tried to rush her from behind.

The throat was one of the three easiest targets Master Luke had told her - had taught them all - about.

Rey pivoted on her foot and took a step to the side. Unkar stumbled, but straightened himself far faster than a man of his size should have been capable of. It didn't matter. She was ready.

Rey's hands, this time, both cupped, came in and boxed Unkar's ears like she'd seen Master Luke demonstrate countless times to the dummy they had. It felt as natural as it did good, and part of Rey long buried beneath the dark and the loneliness howled with delight at Unkar's cry of pain.

The ears were the second of the three weak spots she'd learned about.

She was pretty sure she'd just burst his eardrums then. Whatever balance he had was shot. He wouldn't be getting up for a little while.

Rey remembered the next of the three weak spots and decided that it was better to be safe than sorry.

Unkar had tears in his eyes as he blinked blearily and vagrantly out from behind them.

Her palm strike came in at an upwards angle, but that only helped. She felt the cartilage give and something slick and hot spread beneath her fingers as she retracted her hand.

He finally collapsed then, crying out and falling like a puppet with its strings cut. Rey looked down on him, coldly, and for several seconds before the reality of the situation started settling in on her.

She blinked, and shook her head, as if waking from a dream. Her skin felt cold and clammy, a sharp contrast to the unnatural hotness in her hands.

Calmly, as patient as an idle readying storm, Rey stepped over Unkar, grabbed her fallen bag, and then sprinted for her dear life out the door.

* * *

The run to the bus stop was maybe a mile, but it felt pitifully short to Rey, who felt like she couldn't run away fast or far enough. Her hand felt sticky with the leftovers of Unkar's nose. The mere reminder just made her put in an extra burst of effort.

The bus was there when she arrived, so thankfully she didn't have to spend time waiting. She grabbed the first seat and banished all thoughts of Unkar, the blood, and ' _Holy shit, is he going to call the cops?'_ amidst a sea of one, two, threes and her ABCs.

Rey was almost back to rational right about when the bus went over a speedbump, and the sudden rocking movement reminded her of that impossibly real moment when her wrist was trapped in the grubby maws of booze and cruelty.

She glanced down at her hands, which were resting in her lap. An ugly bruise was already forming, covering almost her entire forearm, and while her wrist didn't seem broken, it kept sending body-trembling pulses of magma up her arm. She gingerly rolled the sleeves of her denim jacket down and breathed a small sigh of relief when she saw that the sleeve covered the damage Plutt had done.

Before she knew it, she was at school wondering when she'd even gotten off the bus. She looked up at the building blankly, her mind far from processing the events of her morning.

Throat, ears, and nose. Rey eyed a nearby boy who was nearly a foot taller than her. Was that really all it took to take someone down?

Rey shivered.

Her hand still felt tacky. She needed to get to the restroom quickly and-

"Hey Rey!" Finn shouted from behind her.

Rey turned - after shoving her hand into one of her jacket pockets - and saw him hopping out of his Gran's car, waving at her. She had approximately five seconds to plaster a smile on her face before Finn got close enough to notice how she was  _actually_  feeling.

She succeeded.

She was getting better at this.

She chatted and smiled, and even made a joke or two, slipping into an autopilot that would have impressed herself on a good day, all the while aware of just how easily her thumping heart would give her away if anyone could hear it.

* * *

By around lunchtime, Rey had managed to convince herself that Unkar wasn't going to call the cops on her. He had very strong opinions on the police, many of which started with the word "fuck" and went on from there. She would have to see if she could stay a few days longer at Finn's place this weekend, give the man time to calm down, or maybe time for her to come up with a plan that wasn't delaying the inevitable.

That didn't stop her from nearly jumping out of her skin whenever the bell rang. Or from anxiously glancing at the door whenever someone walked in. She half-expected someone to come fetch her any minute now, and the thought played over and over in her head like a bad soap-opera. They'd be wearing a gray suit and have a tired look in their eye and-

_Breathe, girl. Breathe._

She zeroed in on that thought and trudged through her state-mandated education with all the will of a depressed sloth.

Thankfully, Rey had considerably more classes with Finn and Rose for Junior year. They all had Chemistry, Pre-Calc, Gym ( _ugh_ ), and Spanish together, and the only downside was that Liam was  _also_  in Chemistry. To make matters worse, the four of them had been put together as lab partners for the semester.

For a Friday, it was pretty fucking bad, and it only got worse when Finn got a text from his Gran between Pre-Calc and Spanish.

"Crap!"

Rose and Rey both looked in his direction.

"Sorry," he said, "Gran just texted asking if I'd packed - I forgot to tell you guys, we're going to visit my aunt for the weekend, and we're leaving after school."

"No sleepover?" Rose asked.

Rose sounded heartbroken. Rey just wanted the room to suddenly stop spinning.

"What about Chinese and The Twilight Zone?" Rey added, because  _shit_  this was not supposed to happen.

He shot them an apologetic look. "Sorry. I should have told you guys sooner."

"That's okay," Rose sighed. "I'm not feeling that great today anyway. Maybe I'm still just adjusting to being back, but I'm exhausted. I think I'll just go home and crash."

That was the sound of hope shriveling up and dying.

Suddenly the prospect of facing Plutt again seemed imminent. Imminent and very  _real_.

Just because he wouldn't call the cops didn't mean anything. He could have friends. Hell, he could even have called that stupid, sleazy caseworker friend of his and have her stuff in a car and ready to be sent off to the hellholes of the system.

"Hey Rey," Finn asked, coming in close and examining her. "You okay? You kinda' look sick."

"M'fine," Rey mumbled, just before shaking her head. "Just...the fish tacos."

Both Finn and Rose gave her suspicious looks before they both shrugged. Neither of them looked like they believed her, but they dropped it nonetheless.

* * *

Taekwondo was progressing at a breakneck pace. Either that or she had somehow entered a localized wormhole. She had shown up early to change alone today, as she usually did whenever Plutt was in one of his moods, but even then it felt like the minutes were skipping by like jolly children. She'd finally stopped worrying about someone interrupting class summoning her (to the principal's office or a police car she had no clue), but that only meant that Plutt had decided to pursue... _other_  avenues.

She had no delusions about it. Plutt would get back at her. He wouldn't kill her (not tonight, that is). He was scum but he wasn't stupid. But he could make it hurt.

Her dobok snapped audibly as she went through the instructed jabs and hooks. A nearby yellow belt - one of the recently promoted batch of white belts - looked over at her nervously at before taking a not-so-surreptitious step away.

Any other night, she would have felt bad about it.

If she thought it'd work, she would have seriously considered manually adjusting the wall on the clock while Master Luke wasn't looking, so maybe he wouldn't realize if he kept her late.

But unfortunately, this wasn't some cartoon. Here, people didn't walk off a broken nose like it was nothing. People like Unkar didn't repent after one good beating ( _Maybe after a few more?_ ). Here, people like Rey didn't hurt someone and get away without consequences.

 _Especially,_  her treacherous conscience added,  _when it felt_ so  _good._

Rey jerked, flinching angrily as she imagined crimson staining her fingers once more. They'd just moved to sparring and Rey was partly through putting on her gear, when Master Luke called out to the class.

"Poe, I'd like to see you spar," he announced. "You've been with us long enough now that I think you're caught up with where I expect you to be in everything else."

"Yes sir. Thank you sir!" Poe said, nodding gratefully. He moved to start putting on his own gear. He'd joined a little over a month ago, and Master Luke, in his unerring and cautious reasoning, had made him sit out every sparring session so far, just so he could catch Poe up with all the other things that a newly promoted Black Belt should know.

Personally, Rey thought that Master Luke had been testing Poe's patience and resolve. It was no secret that Poe loved sparring, and she'd theorized that part of the reason Master Luke had him sit out was to see if he would quit when he could not participate in what he loved.

Of course, just her luck, Poe didn't quit. If anything he'd become even more eager and had instead offered encouragement to the many lower belts whenever they were sparring; he was always one of the first to volunteer for self-defense demonstrations, he showed up early to help set up, and he left late to help pack up. Instead of being discouraged, Poe's enthusiasm had practically doubled in his time at the Dojang, and nowadays he was always doing something to help others. The man was like a hyper-focused, hyper-energetic dog in a peanut butter-slathered ball pit. He  _thrived_  in the restricted environment, and if he weren't so damn cheery all the time, Rey might even have liked him. As it was, he was just...exhausting.

Yes, that was it. Exhausting. Poe was a human battery, and talking with him felt like doing the Tour de France with cement shoes. He was snarky, a bit presumptuous, overly humble, very cocky, and too many contrasting adjectives to string together. He  _never_  crossed any lines though, and he was always respectful when it was time to shut up and listen, an otherwise a model student, and somehow that made it worse.

He also couldn't help but goad Ben with that stupid flirty boy-thing where they insulted each other's faces, their forms, and even their  _clothes._ She used to think high school girls were catty, but Ben and Poe were positively devious and underhanded, and the best (read:  _worst_ ) part was Ben kept  _smiling_  whenever Poe was around.

Long story short, she kind of hated Poe.

"No need for your gear tonight," Luke said, smiling at Poe's fervor, "We'll just have you promise spar. Get you back in the rhythm of things."

Rey sighed a sigh of relief, quietly enough that she wasn't heard among the hubbub around her. It was a somewhat informal practice since only a handful of students had shown up (Fridays weren't a popular night for class), and Master Luke had been spending more time working with each of them individually. It wasn't that Rey didn't like working one-on-one with Master Luke - it's just that her wrist kept throbbing and she'd been hoping for a nice, calm poomse workshop.

"We'll have you spar...hmm," Luke looked around the Dojang, which was currently filled with mostly Green Belts, an Orange Belt, Rey, and Poe. "Rey, let's see how you do. I haven't had you do much sparring since promotion and if you're going to be a red belt soon you should practice sparring a few of the seniors."

Well  _shit_.

She gulped. She may not have liked the guy, but she'd seen him spar and if he beat Ben, God only knows what he'd do to her. Even so, she could feel her mind sharpen at the prospect of facing Poe. The man had far too much ego, and Rey had far too much energy to spare. Maybe facing the human Energizer bunny would help put her mind to rest. If nothing else, she knew that her wrist wouldn't be struck  _too_  hard in a promise spar.

Rey walked over to Poe and Luke, then bowed in as Luke instructed. They took up their fighting stance, and if her kiyaah was a little too intense, well, no one could blame her for giving her all against Poe now could they?

Master Luke's hand came between them. "Remember guys, I want to see technique and control here, not who can hurt the other more." He looked at each of them in turn, and Rey could have sworn his eyes met hers for a millisecond longer before he stood up. He retracted his hand and leapt back, signalling for them to start by shouting "Shijah!"

Poe extended his hand for their Dojang's traditional hand slap. It was meant to be a sort of "Let's do our best" and "Let's not murder each other" signal, all in good jest and not the kind of thing Rey's brain could easily process right now. All she saw was Poe, taunting her with a conciliatory hand, and before she knew it she was slapping his hand away and leading with a turning mule kick and a kiyaah that shook her whole body.

Grinning, Poe stepped easily to the side, and then around to her front, delivering a quick and precise roundhouse that missed by a few centimeters to her still lowered head. Rey flinched, arching back and away from the strike seconds too late and lost her balance as she failed to re-chamber her kick.

There was a round of oohs and aahs from the lower belts, followed by a grinding noise in her head that she realized was her slamming and grinding her teeth together.

She rebalanced herself and brought her guard up (right arm a little further back than strictly necessary but who cared about defense?). Poe was bouncing on the balls of his feet, his upper body weaving unnecessarily as she tried to track him and -

His foot came in like a bullet and before she could react, she felt the arrested momentum dissipate in a light tap against her side. Poe's kiyaah sounded mocking and ape-like. Rey's retaliatory strike was met with a near disdainful parry as he stepped in and brought his rear leg around in a head-level crescent kick that just grazed the top of her hair buns, but still left her burning.

He leapt away, his smile easy and friendly and exactly like the one he had when talking with Ben.

(Who wasn't there. Thank God for small mercies. She didn't know what she'd do if he were there watching her get her ass handed to her by freaking  _Poe_  of all people.)

Poe whooped and his bouncing changed, switching from the traditional fighter's cadence into something wider and yet, her mind warned her, far more dangerous. His legs positioned themselves farther apart ever so slightly and Rey had barely half a second to wonder  _Why?_  before he was in her space again, eyes mocking, mocking,  _mocking_  as he lightly brushed the heel of his foot on her collarbone before leaping away like a chimpanzee on speed.

Surely this was a joke? Rey looked to Master Luke, who showed no reaction to Poe's taunt and subsequent null-point strike.

Poe circled her again, and Rey swore as she realized she had no clue what he was doing. Master Luke had frequently advised people  _against_  this kind of monkeying around, the constant circling and hit and run tactics didn't necessarily work well in a sparring match where your opponent was just as faster or even faster, not to mention the frequent warnings the ref would issue for non-assertive actions. The kind of stamina needed to pull off the kind of constant movement Poe was managing was staggering, and that was just one more fucking  _perfect_  thing about him.

Roaring, Rey leapt at him with a cut kick aimed for his chest, but Poe faked one way and then practically twirled the other. Her heel met nothing but air, and Rey stumbled as she found herself overbalancing into the strike. She turned and brought her leg up into a front-snap kick that would piledrive into him, but Poe met her strike with an easy push down on her knee. Her kick interrupted, Rey fell into the long step and winced. Her guard was down and her legs were too far apart to bring in for another kick.

Once again, Poe's alternating roundhouses struck lightly at her abdomen. If this were a real spar she'd have been shutout with barely a breath in between strikes, and that made her blood  _boil._

"Come on!" she yelled, "Come on, you asshole, is that all you've got?"

"Rey, keep it civil!" Master Luke snapped.

"It's alright Kwanjangnim," Poe answered, his easy grin fading into something more serious, something calculating, "Not the first time I've been called that."

 _Yeah, because Ben does that practically everyday_ , she thought.

She missed Ben. He was supposed to be here today. Why wasn't he?

Her musing was interrupted by Poe's kiyaah and following series of machine gun kicks into her chest. None of the strucks actually hit her, but each successful strike burned like a hot poker to her body.

He was too fast, her mind relented. Too fast and too tricky for her to take advantage of that now. The only way she was going to land even one hit in was with a surprise, and Rey wanted - no, needed - to get a hit in.

Unkar flashed through her mind, and whatever reservations there may have been at what she was about to do were silenced. She needed this. She needed a win.

Poe's hurricane kick was the perfect opening she needed.

Rey knew she couldn't move out of the way of his light-tap strikes. That didn't mean she couldn't move in to them though.

Poe's kick nearly knocked the wind out of her, but she'd adjusted for the strike as much as possible. She ate the kick like it was for breakfast, and then she smirked, enjoying the shock and surprise in his eyes before Rey's own high-section roundhouse came in and slammed into his face.

There was a flash of scarlet and Poe fell to the ground.

That small, violent part of her, the one that'd been whispering to her since morning, shuddered with delight, and Rey tried not to feel too sickened by it.

She kiyaahed again and-

"That is  _enough!_ "

Time stopped. It lasted for a hundred eternities and then Rey let out a long, slow, horrifying breath where the implications of what she'd done settled on her skin like hot magma.

On the ground, Poe stirred and sat up, blinking.

"Mr. Dameron," Master Luke said, walking up to the two of them and yet never taking his eyes off Rey, "Good job absorbing that last kick. Are you ok?"

Cold. Rey's mind gibbered frantically as she stared at those pits that were her Master's eyes. It was like looking into the dark of a cave and knowing something old and wise and angry was looking back at you.

"I'm fine, Master Luke," Poe said, wincing as he touched a shallow but very bloody cut on his temple. "Nothing a bandage won't fix."

"You should head to the hospital, young man," Master Luke admonished, "I understand you mitigated a lot of the damage from the kick, but being proud is half the toll that'd lead to your death. Did you drive here?"

"Yeah." Poe stood and winced, holding a rapidly darkening dobok sleeve up to his temple.

"Well you won't be driving tonight. Can anyone help him get to the clinic? It's about three blocks west of here on the corner of Macklin and Jetson."

Rey watched as Master Luke arranged with one of the lower belts (who was a few years older than her but attending the same college as Poe) to have them take care of Poe. She wanted to say something, but whatever her brain came up with sounded weak and dishonest even to herself.

They lined up. She didn't join. She was relegated to the side and told to wait. Master Luke thanked everyone for coming and reminded everyone that they needed to bring their insurance renewal in by next month. No one stayed back to change into their street clothes.

By the time the last student left the dojang, Rey had come down from her battle high. She couldn't help but shake in place as she watched the proceedings, feeling more and more estranged and less and less human as everyone (sans Master Luke) kept shooting her these absolutely  _horrified_  looks. The best part was when Poe came up to her and congratulated her.

The stupid, forgiving moron  _congratulated_  her.

Master Luke called her to the front. Rey wanted to nothing more than to run away and forget all about Taekwondo, but something in her must have been broken because instead of running out the door and never coming back she just kept walking forward.

"Now, Miss Kenobi," Master Luke's voice came out in a low drawl. "Would you care to tell me - what the hell was  _that_?"

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Luke makes good on a promise he made Rey.
> 
> TKD Stuff:
> 
> Rey's fight with Unkar - So, when I (AttackotDC) originally wrote this scene, Rey found out that she was well trained, but not prepared to deal with someone as big and strong as Unkar. I chose to do that because I know that sometimes a person's size has a lot more to do with how a fight goes than their knowledge of martial arts. It's a really shitty truth, but sometimes body size is what determines the outcome of a fight, and Rey is a small 16 year old girl. Then thebuildingsnotonfire got his hands on the chapter and wanted to go in a different direction, and I'm glad he did. He's my senior (by that, I mean he outranks me by a good bit in Taekwondo) and he politely reminded me that Unkar is untrained/out of shape, and despite being much bigger than Rey physically, he likely wouldn't be prepared for her to fight back. My lovely coauthor/husband made an excellent point - it doesn't really matter what size you are if your opponent doesn't protect three spots: their throat, ears, and nose. And, if you want to add a fourth spot, the groin is an excellent fourth target.
> 
> Suicide Runs - I'll be the first to say these are named terribly, but I've never heard them called anything else. They're basically neverending nightmarish sprints with lots of short stops, spinning on a dime, and sprinting...again, and again, and again until you want to collapse and cry. Honestly I think they should qualify as a sort of torture.
> 
> Kiyaah/kihap - Usually whenever a Taekwondoian moves into a starting stance, punches, kicks, etc, they give a shout. I think it's literally translated to "spirited yell", and basically it's used to gather and focus spiritual energy. Some people use loud and distracting kihaps to intimidate their opponents during sparring.
> 
> Shijah/Sijak - Begin/Start
> 
> Rechambering - Before each kick, you "chamber"...basically, you prepare your leg to kick (often this is just bringing your thigh up so that your knee is at a 90 degree angle). After chambering, you'd normally say, pivot and kick out from your hip (in the case of a roundhouse kick). Rechambering is after your kick, bringing your leg back into that chambering position rather than putting it back down on the floor.
> 
> Shutout - If one person in a spar gets to ten points and their opponent hasn't scored any, the spar is over and the person with ten points wins.
> 
> Kwanjangnim / Sabumnim - Spelling and pronouncing these terms is super fun. So, Kwanjangnim (pronounced Quan - jun - nim) is the phonetic Korean term for Grand Master (which is Luke's rank). We didn't use it in this chapter, but Sabumnim (pronounced Sub - um - nim) is the Korean term for Master. Generally, students would just say "Master Luke" or "Master Skywalker" but it's also correct to refer to him as "Kwanjangnim".
> 
> "Absorbing" a kick or hit - If you're going to get hit, whether by a kick or punch, and you just can't block or counter it, the best way to minimize the damage is to let yourself be pushed in whatever direction physics wants to take you. For example, if someone punches you, aiming for your face in say, a nice right hook, you should let your face get pushed in the direction the punch is moving. Best case scenario, you find a way to block it, but if you can't, absorbing it will mitigate some of the damage/force.
> 
> AUTHOR NOTES:
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: Howdy, I'll keep my thoughts brief here since I'm the reason this went on for so long and y'all probably hate us a little bit for the cliffhanger. Luke is a very relaxed Master in this story. But there is a limit. A normal Dojang would not let an apology be it when one student seriously injures another as when Jess and Rey fought prior. Accidents happen, but rage has no place in a practice spar between comrades. We've seen people get banned from places for less, and what Rey did here will have consequences. Not "leave and never return" but more "Mr. Miyagi is pissed and he'll be damned if she doesn't learn the hard way". There will be no physical punishment from Master Luke, but he is a Grandmaster for a reason and he doesn't need to hit someone to beat them. He's also very human and empathetic, so I'm gonna stop because spoooooilers.
> 
> AttackoftheDarkCurses: (LOL, "brief"...thebuildingsnotonfire couldn't be brief if his life depended on it). Anyway, if anyone has any more questions, we love talking about this fic, writing, and Taekwondo. Feel free to chat with us here or on my Tumblr (I share any fic-related questions with my handsome coauthor). Seriously, don't hesitate to contact us. Even if you just want to talk about Dresden Files or tropes/storytelling or cats or how strange it is to write smut with your spouse (because yeah, that's happening), we're up for the conversation!
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 



	14. Red Belt, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of a heavy scene, in my [AttackotDC's] opinion...but I guess all the Red Belt chapters have a more serious tone. Fret not, we'll return to our regularly scheduled fluff soon, but this stuff had to happen and be addressed eventually. For, you know, plot and character development reasons.
> 
> Thebuildingsnotonfire is entirely responsible for this chapter, minus the last three sentences. We knew almost from the beginning that this chapter would happen eventually, but it was his idea and all he had to work with were the last three sentences I gave him, so don't blame him for the cliffhanger. I promise it'll be resolved quickly - Chapter 15 (Red Belt Part III) is already written and it just needs editing, so you won't have to wait long.
> 
> This chapter and the next make kind of an interesting departure from our usual writing collaboration style. Thebuildingsnotonfire was responsible for this chapter (I edited) and I wrote the entire next chapter (he edited) so I'm curious to see what you all think. I firmly believe his vocab is better than mine, and I thoroughly enjoy his writing style, so I hope you all will too!
> 
> Enjoy :)

The wooden floor of the Dojang had been freshly waxed, Rey's mind idly noted. It hadn't looked nearly this nice last week. The floor had been starting to build up a memorable collection of scratches and dents from all the kicking, falling, and overall liveliness of the the students. Pity, it could have told a story now forgotten.

"Miss Kenobi," Master Luke prompted her again. "I'm waiting."

Maybe if she didn't look him in the eye this would all go away. Maybe if she yanked her usual hoodie on and buried herself in its threadbare fabric this would be a bad dream.

"Look at me when I am talking to you, Miss Kenobi."

The thinly-veiled  _Or else_ finally made Rey look up from her detailed examination of the floor.

The two of them stood in the Dojang, the last lights from the cars of departing students flashing through the window, briefly filling the room with artificial fluorescence that faded away as fast as Rey's hopes of the whole day being nothing but a very bad dream. Master Luke stood at his usual place within the Dojang, centered between the two support columns in the corners of the room. The mirror that stretched the whole length of the forty foot wall behind him seemed to protrude from his back, as if to mock her with her own face.

_See what you are, and accept it._

Master Luke had told them that once, as they each stared at their own reflections so long ago. He'd been acting strangely philosophical that day. Maybe he'd been hoping for a deep existential revelation by the students in the class. All Rey had gotten from the experience were sore knees from kneeling too long and a burning reminder that she looked like a pasty muppet in her dirtied dobok.

Now all she saw in the reflection was her own face, pale and thin, and hair sticking to her skin from all the sweat.

The sight made her want to curl her lips in disgust. That was  _not_  her.

"Miss Kenobi," Master Luke started again, "I'm going to ask one last time. If you do not answer me I will have to ask you to leave."

Rey met his eyes, surprised. He would just let her go like that? That was perfe-

" _Permanently_."

Rey didn't know what being sucker-punched felt like, but she imagined it probably wasn't much worse than this.

"But-"

"Think very carefully," he began, voice level and controlled, "about what you are going to say, Miss Kenobi."

A disconcertingly large part of her brain bristled at the tone he was addressing her with, and the rest was just pissed he kept using her surname. Master Luke didn't often use untitled first names within the Dojang, but he never shied away from them either. Having him call her  _Miss Kenobi_  was surprisingly infuriating - as if he were above her.

 _Tread carefully, girl,_ her muffled conscience supplied.  _Try not to ruin the best thing that's ever happened to you._

 _Piss off,_ the rest of her answered.

"...Poe made me angry," Rey supplied after thinking on it, trying and failing to come up with something to excuse her actions. She  _knew_  objectively that intentionally hurting Poe had been stupid, reckless, and impulsive, but she'd done it anyway.

(It had also sent a disturbingly pleasant chill up her spine. One that she was very firmly ignoring for the time being.)

"Poe made you angry," Master Luke repeated, one unimpressed eyebrow raising. "Poe Dameron, a recently joined and - if I'm not mistaken - a fairly popular and amicable black belt, made you, Rey Kenobi, an almost senior level student,  _angry_."

Rey bit down on her first instinct to snap back at him. "Yes sir," she muttered, eyes falling away as she shamefully remembered the spar, "He just...kept smiling."

"Smiling, you say?" he mused. He stood at ease, with his hands interlocked and resting behind him. He'd look like a gentle school teacher, if not for the dobok. There was an air of assurance and strength that Rey envied around him. "Was Poe's smile offensive to you? Did it hurt you or someone close to you Miss Kenobi?"

Rey closed her eyes and hoped he couldn't see the way her closed fist trembled. "No sir."

"Has Poe ever made you feel unsafe or in danger while in the Dojang?"

"No sir."

"Did you have reason to believe Poe would cause great harm at or in the immediate future when you kicked him?"

"No sir."

"So then why, Miss Kenobi," Master Luke finished, "am I talking to you now?"

He just didn't stop calling her that!

"Because I hurt him."

"Because you  _intentionally_ hurt him," he corrected. "We are learning Taekwondo - I expect there to be injuries now and then. What I do  _not_  expect is for my students to deliberately maul each other. I may not know what's going on in your head, but I was watching closely. I recognize a planned move when it happens, and you, Miss Kenobi, telegraphed your intentions very clearly with that last kick."

"...stop it."

"Say that again?" he said, turning his ear towards her, "Speak up. You can't hide away by being quiet this time."

Rey flared her nostrils and let out a restrained breath. She tried to think of happy, relaxing things. "I said. Stop. It."

"Stop what, Miss Kenobi?"

" _That_ ," she ground out, "stop calling me that.  _Miss Kenobi_  this.  _Miss Kenobi_ that. Use my name."

"I  _am_  using your name, in fact. This is a Dojang," he gestured to the empty room around them. "It is a place of respect. And it is out of respect that I am addressing you as such, because right now, you are not acting like the young woman I've come to know and personally admire, and I am trying to remind you of that."

"It sounds like you're trying to remind me that I'm the granddaughter of your dead teacher," she hissed. "As if that actually matters."  _As if_ I  _actually matter._

Master Luke's eyes took on a sudden and harshly sunken look, and Rey knew the jab struck true, however damning it might be for her.

For a moment she thought he'd dismiss her then, before he started talking in a quieter and more solemn tone. "Very well then, Rey. Answer me honestly - why should I let you stay?"

Rey licked her lips and very firmly and absolutely did not think about Unkar. "Because I love Taekwondo."

Contempt filtered into Master Luke's voice. "You have spat on core values of Taekwondo and, more importantly, on what I have taught you. A labor of love it might be, but it doesn't excuse your actions. Why should I let you stay if you are just going to take use what you've learned haphazardly and for your own benefit?"

"I thought that was the point!" Rey argued. "Why wouldn't I use it?! Why should people get to make fun of me during a spar, but when I fight back I always get called out?"

"Rey, this may be difficult to understand but  _not everything is about you_. Both times this has happened your sparring partners were deliberately baiting you, but, I'll be frank,  _so what?"_ He closed his eyes and turned away from her. "That just shows they need to grow some brains between their ears. They're foolish - not violent."

"I am  _not_  violent!" Rey shouted.

"No?" Master Luke opened his eyes and met her reflections' in the mirror, "Then why are you in fighting stance?"

She stopped and looked down at herself. At some point she had moved from the at-ease position into a forward position, angling her body to minimize points of attack, and brought her arms up in a defensive guard that she knew for a fact could snap into a flurry of blows that could, at the very least, knock a person out cold. Her feet were flat on the ground, but the growing vibrato in her bones told her she'd been about to switch to her usual light footwork for sparring.

"I-I'm sorry," Rey stammered, horror fighting something unmentionable inside her (disappointment. She was  _disappointed_ ), "I don't know what came over me."

"That right there, kid," he pointed out gently, "is why I'm not sure I can trust you around the others."

"I'll work on it."

"You said something along those lines last time too," Master Luke shook his head severely. "Why should I believe you this time?"

Her mounting vertigo was threatening to swallow her whole, but Rey fought it. She kept it at bay with thoughts of hope and dreams of goodness.

"Please, Master Luke," she begged, "I need this."

He looked... _tired_. Not a physical exhaustion, but a bone-deep, strangle-your-soul kind of sapping fatigue that he made no attempt to hide. Shoulders stooped, head a little bowed, and his previous smile lines twisting downwards as he looked every decade his age. It was the most vulnerable Rey had ever seen Master Luke, and the sight disagreed with her immensely.

"Kid," he shook his head, "I think-"

"You can't just kick me out," Rey blurted out, hope and goodness taken somewhere out back and shot through the head. "You can't just do that."

Master Luke closed his mouth and watched her, eyes narrowed.

"You can't just have me do all this-" Rey gestured to the punching bag, the matted walls, and grabbed her own dobok collar, "-and then take it away."

"Kid-"

"Stop! Just stop! You're not listening!" she pleaded, gray and red seeping in at the edges of her heart.

"Rey-"

Whatever tenuous control she had left crumbled away.

"Fuck you!" she shouted suddenly, throat clenching and wanting to rip it out. "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on! Fuck you, fuck this place, and fuck Tae-"

" _Enough_."

A hush fell over the two of them.

She had crossed a line.

She didn't  _care_.

"Gear or no gear?"

It was a testament to how frenzied her thoughts were that it took her a long moment to process the non sequitur. "What?"

"I once promised you a fight should a situation like this happen again," Master Luke breathed. "And I am giving you the option here, would you like to wear gear or not?"

She licked her lips, finding them absurdly dry, and squinted suspiciously at the gray man in front of her. "Why? I'm getting kicked out aren't I? Do you just want to beat on the helpless teenager?"

Master Luke - no, Skywalker - snorted contemptuously. "You are far from helpless, Miss Kenobi. And that you are are even asking that question shows just how little you've learned.  _Why?"_ he echoed. "Guess."

"Guess?" Rey snarled. The utter gall of this man! "Just tell me."

"I've done enough telling," Skywalker faced her, "and you've done enough listening. It's about time I  _taught_ and you  _learned._ "

She wanted to shout back at him that she  _had_ , that she  _had_ learned; she wanted to show him the sticky crimson blood on her fingers, before she remembered she'd washed that sanguine reminder  _hours_  ago -

(it was still there though. It'd always be there.)

-but still. To say that she had learned nothing! That he acted like she was still some fresh-from-the-locker-room white belt.

"What are you choosing?" Rey muttered, stretching her neck rolling her shoulders. She knew, intellectually that this was right up there with the stupidest she'd ever done, but seeing Skywalker standing there, looking at her with those eyes… "I want to make it fair. Gear or no gear?"

"My choice does not matter," he answered easily and crossed his arms. "It's not like you'll manage to hit me."

Those  _eyes_...

Rey shut out all other thoughts and focused on him. The earth, her mistakes, and memories of Unkar all fell away as she fell into that deceptive and welcoming pool of white noise and red tinted realities.

"I'm going to hurt you," she warned. Might as well offer this fool man one last chance.

"Oh Miss Kenobi," Skywalker sighed, "you're going to try, but this is not going to go the way you think it will."

Those eyes full of so much damn  _pity!_

Rey launched herself toward him like a rocket. Her right leg came up in a blurring lead leg kick aimed right at his face, and something primal and old and familiar howled with joy at finally being able to cut loose. Her opponent bobbed and let the strike pass by harmlessly overhead. That was fine - she wasn't expecting to have the first one actually hit him. He was an insufferable ass, but he was still a Grandmaster.

Rey let her body turn into the kick, using the momentum and jumping off at the point her speed was highest into a leaping mule kick that would have broken bone if it had struck. Skywalker nodded critically and just took one step to the side, moving swiftly and then lightly tapped her calf, thigh, and then ribs, before stepping away, forcing Rey to turn and face him again.

"Sloppy technique," he said, coldly. "All power, no finesse. I know you can do better than this."

Glaring hatefully at him, she hunched in close and rushed him, arms up and ready. It'd look like a traditional fighting stance guard used during tournament sparring. Except Rey had no intention of following tournament rules.

She led with a lightning quick jab, once again aimed at his face. Luke adjusted himself ever so slightly and watched it pass by. Eyes widening, Rey roared and started advancing, switching up her routine, trying to land as many punches -  _any_  punch - on him.

Jab, reverse, jab jab, overhand, reverse, jab.

The hurricane of fists would have absolutely shattered his face had any of them landed, but Skywalker dipped and stepped and avoided every strike coming out at him like it was all scripted. Kidney shots found empty air, throat strikes flailed uselessly, and any attempts to grab him ended in her stumbling awkwardly.

"What's wrong?" he said, when she let up and finally remembered how to breathe. "Not getting tired, are you?"

She tasted copper and bared her teeth in a snarl. "Go...to  _hell._ "

"Have you figured out why we're having this fight?" he asked, unperturbed by her outburst.

Her response was an incoherent cry of rage. She bounced from foot to foot, and began circling Skywalker clockwise. He still hadn't assumed a proper form and if nothing else came of this fight, Rey was determined to make him realize the error of the his ways. He'd taught them to never take an attacker for granted, never let your guard down in front of someone who wants to hurt you.

 _Hypocrite_ , she thought, the word as brilliant in her mind as the moon in a cloudless night sky.

He watched her with calm, steady eyes, following her path as she circled him. Suddenly, she jerked right, feinted a kick to his center mass, and then she was stepping to his left side, her own leg ready for a devastating front-snap kick that would blow his kneecap out.

His left leg pulled back as he pivoted to face her with his right foot, and Rey's overconfident strike overbalanced her once again and she was in his range for him to strike, only for him to tap her several times over. Collarbone, throat, sternum, chin, and a series of others too quick to follow. His taps came in like darts and landed like feathers on her body, and the sheer casualness to it all, the simple, grocery-store-trip-for-milk, expression he had would have sent her into an apoplectic fit if she didn't want to break his face so badly.

"You fight like an animal, Rey Kenobi," Skywalker intoned, as if remarking on the weather. "You're an attack dog who's been taught to sit and speak, and play nice in civilized company until you're backed into a corner."

"Yeah, well," Rey grunted, "you're old."

"I'm three times your age, well past the prime of my life, and yet," he watched one of Rey's punches fly by with near boredom, "if this is youth, then you may have it. Impetuous, uncontrolled, selfish, and explosive."

A cynical and jaded curve to his lips emerged. "Have you figured it out yet?"

Foregoing all technique, Rey bent her knees and went in for a tackle. Instead, Skywalker crossed his arms and somehow sidestepped at the last second, leaving one leg out in front of her, as if this were a skit and she one of the Three Stooges. Her eyes widened, and fortunately she was able to step over the offending leg. It resulted in her taking several awkward long steps and she crashed into the punching bag headfirst, knocking the air out of her like an impact dummy.

She came up disoriented, head pounding and neck aching like something mean and vindictive.

"We can stop at any time," Skywalker commented with the kind of attitude of someone going for a walk. The asshole wasn't even breathing hard. "I don't want my students getting unnecessarily hurt, after all."

"So I'm still your student then?" Rey wheezed through the pounding in her ears.

"You are my responsibility, Miss Kenobi," Skywalker corrected. "And -  _for now_  - you are still my student. Whether that remains the case is up to you."

"I really want to hit you right now," Rey admitted, "because you are an insufferable jerk."

"I've been called worse," he shrugged, "and maybe I'll let you. Once you tell me why we're fighting."

Rey had to gnash her teeth to keep from spitting the stream of vitriol that came to mind. "I don't know."

"You don't know, or you don't care?" Skywalker took a step closer, and something seemed to have changed. He seemed genuinely concerned. "Miss Kenobi, what is going on?"

Her eyes stung and her throat felt raw, but the gut-wrenching throb around her wrist stopped her from speaking. She wanted her bed. She wanted to think about Ben's dark eyes and cocky smirk. She wanted this whole fucking day to never have happened.

Instead, she reached for that savage and wild part of her, so close to the top of her skin and she was a hop, skip, and a jump away from true hysterics.

Screaming her voice hoarse, Rey ran at Luke. She had no plan anymore. She just knew what he wanted was a fight, and a fight he would get.

Luke watched her approach, and then shook his head quickly. He elected to step back this time, and Rey started swinging wildly at him as she got close. Each strike missing by a mile or three as he lead her on a virtual tour of the Dojang. Always stepping back, no longer taunting her, his eyes held her gaze the whole time until slowly, inevitably, she started slowing down. Her head pulsed with displeased flashes of pain, she was starting to lose all strength in her left arm and she'd never wanted vomit as much as she did then.

It was only sheer force of will that was keeping her standing, and it was getting harder with every second.

 _I have to,_ she chanted.

"Have you figured it out yet?" Skywalker asked, eyes once again so full of pity Rey wanted to stab them with thumbtacks. She ignored his question.

_I have to. I have to. I have to-_

Skywalker paused, hesitating. He wasn't moving back or anything. He was still!

_-get a hit in!_

She lunged forward with her left in a desperate volley, putting everything she had left into a single last ditch effort.

Skywalker  _blurred_ in place and suddenly he was two feet to the side and out of the line of fire. It looked like some of that bullshit magic crazy power that Liam's video games always had. But it was nothing so physics-defying as that, though, Rey knew intellectually. He was just that fast.

He was just that much better than her.

The last of her resolve crumbled.

Rey was aware she was crying.

Master Luke held her wrist with one hand, the other had grabbed her shoulder and held her in place.

She was facing the mirror. She'd just been about to break her hand, and possibly worse, against the reflective glass wall. Master Luke hadn't moved out of the way because she'd cornered him, he hadn't moved as he would have normally because he didn't want her to get hurt.

The girl in the mirror was small. She had long chestnut hair tied in a set of triple buns, one of which already unraveled with the other two on the way. Her face was the pale pink and burning fire of anger and shame, and a pair of tear tracks shone in the suddenly radiant light of the fluorescent tube lighting from above. She had a split lip, and mousy cheeks that did made her look cuter than she probably thought she was. She didn't look like someone who'd (in all likelihood) sent her shitty guardian to the hospital that morning.

"Rey," Master Luke rumbled beside her, still holding her, "if it means that much to you, you can hit me."

She had no idea what he was apologizing for anymore. Master Luke was strong in the way that so many adults seemed, but even more important, Master Luke he was safe in a way that so few  _people_ actually were. Rey jerked away, wincing as she felt her injured wrist leave his solid but objectively gentle grab.

She curled her first and looked him up and down.

Dammit.

She dropped her hand and shook her head. "You wanted me to stop the fight."

Master Luke inclined his head.

A hysterical sob escaped her. "That's why you goaded me. You kept waiting to see if I'd keep trying."

"Often times, contrariness can be used to teach wayward students." Master Luke offered.

"God, you sound so full of yourself." It actually hurt to talk, but she couldn't keep quiet. "Reverse psychology? Really? That's your secret teaching technique?"

Master Luke looked down kindly at her. "You stopped eventually, didn't you?"

Rey hiccuped and wiped the tears in her eyes. "Only because I was too tired."

"You had the chance to attack me, when I had all but broken you, when you had every right in the world to strike me down, and you didn't.  _That_  shows me that there is hope." Master Luke smiled awkwardly. "I'm proud of you, Rey."

Oh dammit, and here she'd thought she'd stopped the waterworks.

She reached up to wipe her face again with her other arm, but she forgot which one to bring up. Instead of her right sleeve, she brought up her left, and, like everything else that day, it went wrong.

Her sleeve rolled back.

Not a lot - barely a few inches - but it was more skin than she'd been planning on showing there for weeks if she had any say. Normally her dobok ran a little large on her, so no one had a good chance to see her wrist that night.

Except Master Luke, whose sharp eyes caught every motion of hers, including the sudden twitch she made to cover up the bruise one more time.

Luke's hands snatched out and held her once again, and, without any prompting, he slid the sleeve of her dobok up, revealing a pattern of angry dark blue and purple blotches that barely left any of her own skin tone to be found.

He dropped her arm and took a step back, his blue eyes widening as he stared at her.

An ice-cold wave of serenity, or possibly deep panic, washed over Rey as she watched Luke connect the dots.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: The truth is out and promises are made.
> 
> I'm not sure we really have any terms to share here, but let us know if you have any questions (or comments)! This is a bit of an intense chapter...the next one will be too, though maybe in a different way.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: This is a bit of a heavy chapter. Honestly it was hard to write in some places. However, I believe that to rebuild into something greater, we must first break the original down. Martial arts are about unlearning bad habits, overcoming your previous self, and becoming better for the effort and time. Master Luke is also somewhat unconventional. I can practically guarantee you a normal Master would not make a show of it. Rey will come out the other end of this stronger and better for it. It's a long road there, but a crucial and potentially the most important step has been taken.
> 
> As always, we're on:
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 



	15. Red Belt, Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from AttackoftheDarkCurses: I'm not sure this chapter needs much of an introduction. As we mentioned in the last chapter, I wrote this one, and thebuildingsnotonfire handled the editing so I can tell you right now it'll be quite a bit fluffier.
> 
> We're picking up right where we left off in Chapter 14.
> 
> I've had this chapter written for a while now...the last scene of this chapter is actually one of the first ones I wrote for this fic, so I hope you all enjoy it.

Rey sat, frozen in time and waiting for eternity to end, in Master Luke's office. He'd followed her in slowly, and sat at the desk, facing her. They'd both been like that for several minutes, each of them unwilling to break the tenuous peace that had somehow formed. Whenever Rey looked up at him, his face was buried in his hands. Finally, he exhaled slowly, and looked at her with an alertness that had nothing to do with whatever enmity that may have been there before. He ran his fingers through his hair.

"Rey," he said quietly, "I need to know exactly what's going on. Considering the bruises on your arm and how you're handling that wrist...I'm pretty sure I can take a guess," he closed his eyes and crossed his arms, "but I need to hear it from you."

She swallowed hard, and felt her throat constrict at the sight of him. They hadn't had a chance to clean up from earlier and instead, they'd just come straight into the office after he'd seen her wrist. As it was, she still felt like something dragged through the emotional wringer, all strung out and more than a little numb. Even so, Master Luke had never looked so...uncontrolled. Her eyes moistened and she felt a fresh tear roll down her cheek. She blinked a few more away, and wrapped her arms around herself, doing whatever she could to avoid meeting his concerned eyes.

Something clamped around Luke's heart. She looked  _so_  small, and  _so_  young. He'd never seen her look so much like a child. She'd always held herself up high, and there'd always been a defiance to her that he'd worried would get her in trouble some day, but now she just looked fragile. Worst of all, she was hurting in a way no child should.

Ben was going to break something when he found out, Luke thought. And that would be a best case scenario. He only hoped that he'd be around to stop the worst of it when it happened.

He cursed the circumstances that put him in the position to be the one to handle this, even though he was thankful he'd found out. It was a twisted world that allowed the teacher who taught a girl how to beat the crap out of someone find out that  _she's_  the one being hurt. God, at some point he'd have to find out if she'd ever used her training on someone else, too. Normally he would trust in the student, but considering the situation, Luke wouldn't hold it against the kid.

Deciding to bite the bullet, he cleared his throat, and spoke softly, "Rey, we need to talk about this."

The kid couldn't bring herself to do anything but shake her head. She was tensing up, he noted - he was doing his best to stop his heart from taking the lead, but he'd only fallen deeper into his role as teacher and martial arts guide in the process. Her previous strength, born from unmitigated and repressed rage, had quickly turned into the tensile and cautious demeanor of someone rapidly approaching panic. It was a deeper, more frightening strength, and it made people more jittery and nervous than a dog near a power plant.

She couldn't bring herself to do anything but shake her head, and sit silently, dealing with the panic that was coursing through her under her quiet facade.

Luke inhaled sharply as a terrible thought crossed his mind. He stood up quickly (maybe a bit too quickly, judging by her skittish jump) and looked down at her, making the decision to call someone far smarter than he. "Stay here. I'll be back in a few minutes." He reached the door and made sure to put as much emotion as possible into his words, " _Please_ , stay here."

And if his thoughts were true -  _God_  he hoped not - but if they were, then whoever was responsible would be finding themselves in a dark room -  _very soon_  - with the son of Anakin Skywalker.

* * *

Ten minutes later, someone walked in and closed the door behind them, but it wasn't Luke.

Rey glanced up at the woman who took Luke's seat at the desk, and she was met with the same soft brown eyes that she was used to seeing on Ben. Leia's hands were clasped together on her lap, and she looked at Rey, those warm brown eyes now clouded with wariness and sorrow.

"Hi, Rey," she greeted gently. When Rey didn't respond, she kept going. "Luke told me what happened." Again, another pause to let Rey say anything, do  _anything_ , as if to make it all untrue. "He thought you might be more comfortable talking to me."

Leia paused, and took a steadying breath of her own. "Sweetheart, can I ask you a few questions? I promise, you aren't in any trouble here. I just want to talk, okay?"

Rey was going to shake her head. She was going to sigh, or maybe pull herself together and laugh it off, maybe say she got in a fight at school or maybe something that sounded less like a farce so that people wouldn't keep prodding at the truth. This was her chance, Rey imagined. She could still make it up, somehow. Maybe gym class had been wrestling, and she'd gotten paired up with that particularly bitchy cheerleader who hated her guts for some reason. Maybe she'd fallen and hurt herself at Maz's the other day. It wouldn't have been the first time.

But Leia's eyes changed her mind. There was something about them. Something warm, and comforting, and familiar. Something that made Rey feel like everything would be okay, even if she told them the truth.

"Sure," she said finally, her voice barely a whisper.

"Is someone hurting you?" Leia asked finally, after a moment of silence.

Rey took a deep breath, and nodded.

Leia closed her eyes and sighed softly, but didn't seem surprised. When she opened her eyes again they were wet, but flinty.

"Can you tell me who?"

 _The asshole who takes care of me. Life. Same difference_ , her brain wanted her to say. She ended up admitting, with barely a hit of a sneer, "Plutt. My foster father."

"That's what Luke thought." Leia hesitated, and looked down at her hands. "I have another question, Rey, and I don't want to upset you, but we need to know exactly what you've been going through and Luke thought you'd feel more comfortable talking to me about it." She took another minute, before looking up cautiously at Rey. "Has he... _touched_  you?"

Rey blinked, and realized what the woman meant. "No," she said quickly. "Not like that." She took a deep breath, and explained, "He gets angry sometimes, and he's usually drunk. Sometimes he throws things at me. These," she gestured toward the bruises on her arm, "are from this morning. He was getting mad when he was talking to me, so I tried to walk away, and he grabbed my arm."

Leia exhaled slowly. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. Can...can I tell my brother that? He's very concerned, and I think it would help if he knew what you've told me."

Rey nodded numbly. She knew Leia was just asking to be nice. No matter what Rey had said, she would tell someone anyway - Master Luke, Principal Holdo, the police... _someone_. She was an adult, and once a responsible adult heard that a kid was being hurt, they had to do something. Logically, Rey knew that, but it didn't mean she wasn't suddenly afraid of the consequences.

Leia smiled softly, and got up, then left the room with a promise that she'd be back. After a few minutes both siblings came in, and Rey was a little surprised to notice the glassy sheen to Luke's eyes. She paused briefly, unsure and feeling oddly disjointed from her body, and then stood up and met him halfway in a brittle hug.

He was actually a really good hugger. She could see where Ben got it from.

"Kid, I'm sorry I didn't notice earlier," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "I thought something might be going on, but I had no idea it was  _this_...I'm so sorry."

"I never said anything," Rey said quietly, the tightness in her chest uncoiling with each word. It was out. Whatever happened...she knew they wouldn't let things stay the same. "I'm sorry too. For everything."

Luke let her go, and she sat back down while he walked around the desk to take his seat. Leia settled into the chair next to Rey, and patted her arm lovingly. "We're just glad we know now, sweetheart."

"Leia's right," Luke said. He took a deep breath, "I wish you'd told us earlier, but we know now and that's what matters. Now we can do something about it. Obviously you can't stay in Plutt's care."

The relief she'd been feeling was immediately replaced with panic. "But Master Luke, you don't understand. If I don't stay with Unkar, I'll have to move again." She remembered the familiar and not too welcome experiences of being shipped from place to place like an unwanted package. "I can't leave. I have friends and the Dojang and you and Ben and-"

"Rey," he interrupted, his expression pained, "I know how important all of that is, but...your safety needs to come first."

"But this is the only place I've felt safe," she breathed. "This is the closest I've gotten to  _home_."

Leia cast her brother a sympathetic look. "Luke, realistically, in this city, even if you go to the police tonight, they'll probably just do a well-check and odds are nothing will change. At least not right away. If anything, you might just end up pissing this man off. Best case scenario, Rey gets placed elsewhere, but she's right - she'd probably have to switch cities." The woman shook her head ruefully, "And if this man has managed to get away with this for so long, either the service workers don't care enough to try or he has friends who can make things difficult."

"We have friends who can make things difficult, too," Luke reminded her with something light and predatory in his voice. Rey shivered.

"And where would that leave Rey?" Leia's riposte was sharp and pointed.

Luke closed his eyes, buried his head in his hands and sighed. Leia pursed her lips, pulled a few bills from her purse and handed them to Rey before saying, "Rey, why don't you pick up some dinner from Maz for the three of us. She'll know what Luke and I want. I need to speak with my brother for a bit - meet us upstairs and we can all have dinner, okay sweetheart?"

Rey agreed, and gave her a pleading look on the way out, silently urging her to help in any way possible. The woman smiled, and nodded.

* * *

Miraculously, Maz really  _had_ known exactly what they'd want for dinner, but before she started making their food, she stopped, and stared at Rey, considering her for a moment. She huffed and then turned, making her way to the kitchen.

When she returned with the orders, bagged up, about ten minutes later, she pursed her livery lips, narrowed her eyes, and peered deeply into Rey's own.

"You've done a good job working here, girl," she said, much to Rey's surprise. The woman hacked a cough, and took on a serious expression she rarely wore. "You know, I've lived long enough to see the same sort of eyes in different people. You're a fighter, kid - strong, stubborn, and passionate," she chuckled. "Don't let anyone try and convince you otherwise."

Rey's brow furrowed and she paused, a little taken aback by the woman's comment. After a summer of working for Maz, she'd heard the woman say a lot of curious things, but they weren't usually aimed at her. (And if they were, they were usually something along the lines of "Keep moving, girlie!" or "That's coming out of your paycheck!")

"Uh...thanks, Maz," she said, taking the bag the woman offered. She stood there feeling ungainly and inelegant and all kinds of emotions she really wasn't ready to feel so soon after the mess that had happened earlier. She finally landed on  _have a good night_ , and promptly walked toward the door.

"Just remember!" Maz shouted as she walked into the back, "It's alright to let other people be strong for you once in a while."

Rey scrunched up her nose. That old woman was too sharp.

Luke and Leia were waiting for her in the apartment above the Dojang. They both sat at the small table that had been made up for dinner, and they seemed to be in much better moods. They...they were kind of acting like they'd managed to miraculously solve Rey's problems in the whole twenty minutes she'd been gone.

"Oh,  _perfect_ , I was hoping she'd send the grilled cheese," Leia crooned, opening the styrofoam box that was labeled with her name. "I haven't had Maz's grilled cheese in years."

"Well, if you came by more often, maybe that wouldn't be the case," Luke scolded, a well-worn smile on his grizzled face.

"Oh hush you," Leia retorted, "I distinctly remember a certain someone forgetting to call me on my birthday - which you share, by the way!"

Luke coughed, a hint of red dusting his cheeks. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"This old fool," Leia leaned and whispered conspiratorially, "Once tried to convince me my birthday was in March, when I know for a fact we're both February kids."

Rey found herself smiling at that. She still felt like she was standing at the edge of a precipice but this felt...nice.

Luke laughed, opening his box so Leia could see he'd gotten the same order. "The grilled cheese is my favorite, too."

Rey had been given her usual - a veggie burger with fries, and she frowned at the fries.

"Not what you wanted?" Luke asked, noticing her disappointment.

"Oh, no, it's what I wanted," Rey answered. "It's silly...Ben usually eats most of my fries."

Leia shook her head in wonder. "Does that boy still do that? He gets that from his father, but lord if it didn't raise my blood pressure when they were at it."

Luke chuckled. "You should know by now that Ben changes about as fast as a continent shifts. However, I am  _more_  than happy to help with them."

Rey rolled her eyes playfully, and moved her container of food a bit closer to his, letting him steal a helping of them. They ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes, and Rey was a few seconds away from believing they'd forgotten all about it when Leia finally spoke up.

"So, sweetheart, Luke and I were talking about how we think we should handle this situation."

Rey swallowed the bite she'd taken, but it felt like it had turned to ash in her throat.

"Obviously you won't be going back there now," Luke pointed out. "I can take you to one of your friend's houses if you'd be more comfortable, but I was thinking you could stay here tonight." He paused to see her reaction, but she was still processing what he'd said. "When Ben moved out I turned his room into a bit of a reading room, and it's got a nice daybed. You're welcome to stay."

When he saw that Rey wasn't going to pipe in, he continued, "Tomorrow, a few of us can go to Plutt's if you think he'll be out, and we can get your things. As for where you'll live...again, if you have a friend you'd be more comfortable staying with, that's okay," his eyes flashed to Leia, and she nodded reassuringly, urging him to keep going, "but, I think you should stay here." He cleared his throat, and then clarified, "I think you should live here."

Her stomach flipped, but not uncomfortably. She had to put both hands on the table to steady herself.

Rey looked up from her dinner, slack-jawed. "Live here? Like...for more than tonight?"

(This had to be a joke. People didn't  _want_  her. Not normally.)

"Yes," Luke nodded, and Rey realized that he was actually more nervous than he'd ever been. (What, did he think she'd say  _no?_ ) "You can take Ben's old room. If you want."

"But...why?"

Luke tilted his head, confused by her question. "Because, you might be a very self-sufficient sixteen year old, but you're still a kid, and you need to have a stable home. I can't claim to know the legality of changing your address or guardianship-"

"Not that." Rey interrupted. Maybe it was the atmosphere, the events of the day catching up to her, but she couldn't stop the tremble in her voice when she then asked, "Why me specifically?"

"Rey, be honest," Luke answered, his gentile look gaining a sense of serenity and love, "Why not you? I'd like to think I've done my best to hide it, but you can't say you don't fit in with us here. I don't normally eat grilled cheese with my students, you know. Why do you think I haven't been reminding you about the insurance?"

Her mind came up with a blank. "I-I'd always assumed that you'd forgotten about it."

Luke snorted. "Kid, you're good, but you're terrible at deception. No," he met Leia's stern look, "I've been mostly overlooking it, waiting to address it with you in private. I really shouldn't have. But after getting to know you..." he shrugged helplessly.

Rey looked down at her hands. There were clenched and tight and hurt, but there were familiar. She didn't know how to feel, confronted with the frankness of Luke's words.

"Anyways, in regards to your guardianship...I'm sure Amilyn and I can figure something out," Leia offered, seeing that neither of them were willing to continue the discussion. "Between the two of us, I don't think it'll be a problem."

"Okay...okay, good," Luke said, and then mumbled something unintelligible to himself. THen he faced Rey and resumed his role as kindly  _crazy_  old man who, for some reason, wanted her to live with him. "But, Rey, you're a good kid, and you deserve a much better situation than you have right now. There's nothing wrong with letting someone help you - you have people who care about you, so let us help. If I'm being honest...I've been considering something like this anyway."

Rey looked at him curiously, until Luke added, quietly, "It's what your grandfather would have wanted." He looked up at Leia and gave her a soft smile. "Can you imagine what Ben Kenobi would have said if he knew I let his granddaughter bounce around in the foster care system?"

"He wouldn't have said anything," Leia smiled fondly, "he would have just given you that disappointed look. You know the one."

Luke groaned. "That look was  _painful_. It hurt more than breaking my hand did."

He sighed, and looked back at Rey. "Honestly, Rey, no matter who you're related to, you're my student, and I consider it my responsibility to keep you safe. Now, like I said, if you'd prefer to stay with Finn, or maybe Rose, that's up to you, and them, of course. But I've got an extra room here, and something tells me you'll be a lot less of a grumpy teen than Ben was."

Rey couldn't help but giggle at the thought of a grumpy teenage Ben. Her eyes met Luke's, and she saw that he really meant it. He cared, and he wanted her to stay.

"Okay," she nodded, equal parts terrified and elated. "If you don't mind, I'll stay."

* * *

Ben's old room faced the back of the building, away from the street. There was a muffling quality to the space, as if it were made especially as a place in which someone could hide away from the world. Heavy white curtains hung from both windows, and they let in just enough moonlight to cast a calming, ephemeral shadow across the floor. There was a soft beige area rug in the middle of the room, and other than a few full bookcases, some plants, and a daybed, the room was pleasantly sparse. It was a little corner in the apartment above the Dojang, just waiting for someone to make it theirs.

 _Hers_.

Luke had called it  _her_  room when he showed it to her. She'd never had anyone refer to a space as hers before. Every home she'd been placed into referred to the bedroom she slept in as a guest room, spare room, or basement (for a brief, very sucky time, she'd even spent time in a living room when moving between houses), but never  _hers_.

Rey breathed in the smell of the room. There was some of that old, lived-in smell, along with the artificial fresh pine scent of recent cleaning products. The number of books also contributed somehow, pages and pages of random and odd knowledge and stories filtering in to the air via literary osmosis. It felt warm on her skin. Like fresh cookies or that time she got to sit by a fireplace at one of the old homes.

She was home, apparently.

Thankfully she'd packed cozy sweatpants and a t-shirt to change into after practice, and they worked perfectly as pajamas. Rey curled up under a massive pile of blankets Luke had left on the daybed. He'd apologized and promised they'd look into getting her a better bed at some point, but Rey told him she'd never been so comfortable in her entire life. The blankets were heavy but not suffocating, and if focused, she could imagine Ben using these same blankets.

(That he was also shirtless in this scenario was purely coincidence.)

Sometime before Rey fell asleep, she found herself wishing Ben had gotten a new bed when he had moved out, so she could be curled up in the one he left behind.

She was too tired to blush at that point. In the space between thoughts, she found herself falling falling falling and smiling as she dreamt of waking up in this bed the next day.

It was a good dream.

* * *

"Why are you both being weird?"

Rey cast a nervous look through the rear-view mirror at Luke, who'd just parked his car along the sidewalk in front of Plutt's house. It was late afternoon, and Rey knew the man was already at a bar (as per usual), but Luke had insisted on bringing someone else to help get her things so that their time there would be as short as possible.

Han had been his first choice. Unfortunately, Han was traveling for work.

His next choice had been one of Han's close friends, Lando - a man Rey hadn't met. According to Luke, he was in Vegas gambling away his money at a high-stakes card game.

After a series of dead ends and no-can-dos (Leia was busy doing... _stuff_ , and Luke had been incredibly evasive when Rey pressed), they eventually, and very tentatively (after a lot of hemming and hawing) settled on Ben as Luke's last resort.

Before they left that afternoon, Luke and Rey had a discussion about telling Ben. For once, they agreed - neither of them wanted him to know. At least not right away. Luke was nervous it would send him over the edge into  _angry Ben_  territory, and Rey...well, Rey just felt guilty for lying to him for so long, which of course, she'd fix with... _more lying_ , apparently.

They'd agreed that the best thing to do would be to tell Ben under more controlled circumstances, when he wasn't as liable to go off and do something Solo-level stupid - a designation that both Luke and Leia had come up with in the early years after meeting Han.

Bringing him along was a calculated risk, and when Rey met Luke's eyes through the mirror, she could tell that it was maybe a bit less calculated than he'd originally said.  _This was a bad idea._

Rey cleared her throat, and plastered on a wide, but not too fake smile because, despite the events that precipitated the situation, this was literally her five year old self's dream come true.

"We're not being weird. I just need to pick some stuff up. Plutt's...traveling. So, I'm going to crash in your old room for a bit."

Ben looked back at her from the passenger's seat, his eyes narrowed. "But Luke said-"

"Okay, well, we should probably make this quick," Luke interrupted, knowing they'd been caught in a lie, "Rey's got a lot of homework, don't you kid?"

"Yep, homework," Rey nodded quickly. She stepped out of the car and joined Luke on the sidewalk.

Ben came around the car, and followed behind Rey.

Then he did something she hadn't planned for. He grabbed her arm, in a move that was probably supposed to be gentle, just to get her to stop for a minute, maybe to ask her to explain what was going on. And if he'd grabbed her other arm everything might have played out a bit differently.

But he didn't, and when his hand wrapped around her bruised, sore forearm, she couldn't help but react. Rey winced and hissed in pain, pulling her arm back, cradling it against her chest. And when she looked back up at Ben, trying to hide her horror at her own reaction, she felt her blood run cold.

He looked...normal. Controlled. He was alternating between looking at the house and at her.

" _Rey._ "

She swallowed hard. "It's nothing."

"Rey," he repeated, his voice that too-calm of a still and empty forest, "it's not nothing."

Ben took her hand gently, and if it had been a different situation, her heart would have been pounding for an entirely different reason. His fingers played at the edge of her long sleeve for a moment, possibly debating on whether or not he was being paranoid, before he slowly slid the sleeve up, his calloused fingers softly trailing along her skin.

His breathing hitched when he saw the ugly, dark bruises, which had only worsened in appearance overnight. Ben studied her arm for a moment, not releasing her hand, before his eyes flashed up to meet hers, and she could practically see the thoughts and memories from the last two years flashing through his mind, finally making some sense.

Every time she'd been upset or angry for no obvious reason.

Every time she'd told him it was  _nothing_  when his gut said otherwise.

Every time he thought  _maybe_  she was a bit too skinny, and she confirmed she hadn't eaten.

Every time she'd fucking  _winced_  from a touch that shouldn't have caused discomfort.

As he put two and two together, the sheer pain that developed in his eyes was heartbreaking, and Rey couldn't tear her eyes away from his. Her throat went dry as her brain scrambled to find the right words to explain, but she couldn't find a single word to justify why she'd lied to him nearly the entire time they'd known each other. Sure, she'd been lying to everyone else too, but for some reason it was so much worse that she'd lied to  _Ben_.

"Ben?" Luke tried to grab his attention. He had his serious-voice on, and looked just as he had the previous night in the Dojang. Aware, alert, and in control - which was more than Rey could say for herself at the moment. "We'll talk about it back at the Dojang, okay? Right now we need to focus. We're here to pick up Rey's things."

The words seemed to go in one ear and out the other. Ben didn't take his eyes off Rey, and she could see the fire flaring behind them, reducing all thoughts of civility and humanity to ash and dust.

Before either of them got a chance to say anything, Rey heard a crashing noise come from inside the house. Ben dropped her hand and whipped around to face the house, his attention focused entirely on the inhabitant who wasn't supposed to be home.

" _Ben_ ," Luke said quickly, moving to stand in the man's path. "You're staying out here. Get back in the car. I'll handle this. Don't even think about going in there."

Ben towered over Luke, adopting that familiar animalistic hunch as he advanced on the shorter man. Anger flowed out of him in waves. "You  _knew!_  You  _knew_  and you didn't tell me!"

"I just found out yesterday," Luke explained, eyes cold, voice calm. He did not look surprised by Ben's reaction.

Ben took a ragged breath, and Rey saw him clenching and unclenching his fists, fingers stretching as if in preparation. "How long has this been going on, Rey?" he asked harshly, still staring at his Uncle. "I want to know  _how long_."

It hurt more than she expected when she inhaled deeply, readying herself. There was no point in lying anymore.

"A few years."

" _Years?_ " His voice was wrought with emotion, and he shook his head furiously. " _Luke_ ," he growled. His voice thundered out there on the lawn, and Rey was thankful the neighborhood wasn't that active during the day. She didn't need or want any more attention that this had already gotten. "Out of my way."

Luke stood his ground, bracing his hands against Ben's shoulders, and Rey rushed forward to stand next to him, hoping she could help diffuse the mess of a situation that was playing out on Plutt's front lawn. "Ben, it's okay," she said quietly.

His eyes flicked to her, and he shook his head again. "It's not  _okay_ , Rey. You don't get it. This guy…" He was starting to heave with rage, practically pulsing with each breath not spend beating the shit out of something (or, more likely,  _someone_ ), "he's part of your past now. I'll make sure of it."

"And I will!" she shouted. "I'm never coming back here again."

It seemed like Ben didn't even heard her.

"Not good enough," he snarled, his hair jostled and hung in front of his face. "What if he comes after you? I'm-"

"Boy, you're acting as if I'll just let him get to her." Luke interjected, his own voice slowly losing his cool.

"You already did,  _sir_ ," Ben spat.

"Ben!" Rey yelled, horrified.

"Sometimes," Ben's dark eyes turned to her and then back to the house, "you need to let the past die. Sometimes, you  _kill_ it if you have to."

" _Ben_ ," Luke warned, standing his ground "Stop it. You're not going to touch him, and you're certainly not going to  _kill_  him."

"We'll see."

He pushed against Luke's hands, which were still on his shoulders, until Luke was forced back and Ben moved to walk around him. He got to the front steps in three long strides, and he was about to start climbing them, but Rey reached him first.

Rey had no idea how to stop him. She just knew she had to. Acting on instinct, she grabbed his hand, and held it tightly in both of hers. "Please don't, Ben."

Miracle of miracles, he stopped. He canted his head to hear, as if waiting to hear what she had to say.

" _Please,_ " she whispered, weaving her fingers through his. "Stay out here? I need you out here."

She didn't know what did it. Maybe holding his hand, maybe her asking him, or maybe, he finally realized what he'd been about to do. He spent a minute taking deep breaths and finally pulled out of her grasp, then turned back to face her. The anger she'd seen on him seemed to be overtaken by some other emotion, and Rey hoped it was a better one than the rage she'd been expecting.

His eyes were rimmed in red, and he closed them for a moment, letting out a shaky breath.

Before Rey knew it, he'd pulled her into his chest, wrapping her in a tight, almost painfully-crushing hug. He surrounded her and held her so tightly that it was hard to breathe.

Her own arms came around to circle his waist, bunching the fabric of his shirt in her fists as she suddenly found herself struggling to calm down.

"I'm sorry," he muttered against her hair, " _Shit_. I'm sorry. I should have made sure you were okay."

Rey had no idea when she'd started crying, but she didn't bother trying to stop the tears that streamed down her face. Instead, she buried her face in his chest and let herself really cry for the first time in a long time.

Ben blinked and pulled his head back to stare down at her for a minute before resting his chin on top of her head. "It's okay sweetheart, I've got you," he said softly. "He's not going to hurt you again. Nobody will. I promise."

After a year, or maybe a minute, Luke walked over to them and told Ben, "Stay out here with her. I'll take care of this."

Rey felt Ben nod, but she stayed, nuzzling into him, and he tightened his arms around her when the front door of the house slammed.

The sound sent rattles up her body, too many memories brought to the forefront that started with the sound of that slamming door. Ben held her closer.

"Were you ever going to tell me?" he asked. There was a hint of something indecipherable in his voice, wounded and afraid.

"I thought about it," Rey admitted. "But I was worried I'd be put in a new home somewhere else, and I thought I might not get to see you or Luke or my friends anymore."

Ben sighed, and she prepared herself for one hell of a scolding, but he just said, "Next time I ask if something's wrong,  _please_  tell me the truth. Please, Rey. I need you to be honest with me, especially with things like this. Promise me you won't keep things like this from me anymore."

"Okay," she said softly, "I promise."

He relaxed a bit after that, but didn't let go of her for a second, and if Rey thought she'd felt comfortable, safe, and at home in her new bedroom at Luke's, it was nothing compared to how she felt in Ben's arms.

She was completely unprepared when she finally realized it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A fracture.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: My wife is a fan of including lines from the movies in these, and they're always surprisingly relevant. She is uber talented and I'm lucky enough to be able to read her stuff. She also has a sweet tooth designated entirely for Reylo stuff, so most if not all fluff belongs to her, since I can't write romance worth a darn. All credit for this goes to my wife, who had this written ages ago. I just take forever to read, and write. To my credit, English is not my first language. (Also, I had a cat in my lap like half the time so blame me if something's weird. Or off. He is a very demanding cat.)
> 
> AttackoftheDarkCurses: My husband is adorable and has way too much faith in my writing abilities. He's not wrong about the sweet-tooth thing, but don't think for a minute that he isn't responsible for some of the fluff. He might claim that, but he's a liar. He definitely added fluff. And as for the timeliness of this update...yeah, I blame our cat. Thebuildingsnotonfire sat down to edit this chapter and instantly had a cat climbing over his laptop and into his arms.
> 
> Anyway, one more chapter left for "Red Belt" before we switch gears a bit and move into what we're considering "Act II"...we hope you've enjoyed the story!
> 
> As always, I'm on:
> 
> [ Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 



	16. Red Belt, Part IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from AttackoftheDarkCurses: THIS IS SUCH A LONG CHAPTER. We really could have split this but we already split red belt into four parts and five just felt like overkill. Future chapters will probably continue to be closer to 6-7K.
> 
> So this is the chapter we've been working toward (arc-wise) for a little while. I feel pretty firmly that this is the end of Act I. We never really set out to write this in acts, but oddly enough the story fell pretty neatly into them once we got everything planned out.
> 
> Finally, if I haven't said it lately, you're all awesome. We love your comments and I'm not sure either of us expected this to be very popular since it's a sort of random idea for an AU, so all your support has been a wonderful, happy surprise. We'll thank you all with a healthy dose of fluff...just not in this chapter (sorry).
> 
> Again, picking up right where we left off in Chapter 15.

 

Their embrace was simultaneously too long and too short, and Rey was just on the verge of letting her mind wander toward dangerous thoughts when Master Luke announced his return by awkwardly clearing his throat.

That grabbed their attention, and prompted both of them to reluctantly part. Rey was still a little worried about Ben's state of mind, but the longer they waited the more attention they drew, and she had enough of that on her  _thank you very much_.

"Ben," Master Luke said, and then checked back inside over his shoulder, "stay out here. Rey and I will get her things."

Ben looked mutinous. "But what about-"

"Do you trust me?" his uncle interrupted.

"I..." Ben met his stare and looked away, shame or something else coloring his face, "Yes sir."

"Good, so trust me on this," Luke's voice cooled and Rey was suddenly well aware of just how far he'd been pushed earlier. "Plutt won't be a problem."

Part of her wanted to blurt out that Unkar Plutt was always a problem, but she refrained. Right now, smartassery would only worsen Master Luke's mood, and Rey wanted nothing more than to be rid of this out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere hellhole faster than a blink of an eye. She'd have guessed that Plutt had gone out the back, but his backdoor let out onto a tiny patio with missing bricks that faced the neighbor's kitchen window and a fenced-in wall on two sides. She couldn't imagine the man would be happy with waiting patiently while she and a virtual stranger rummaged through the house.

She had no idea where Plutt had gone, or what had happened in those ten minutes she'd been outside with Ben. Part of her didn't want to know.

(And another part of her was disappointed she missed out on the show.)

They went down to the basement, and Luke packed her books in a box he'd found upstairs while she shoved her clothing in a bag.

Unkar had definitely come down at some point in the last two days and combed through the basement with all the finesse of a drunken warthog. Her bed sheets were in disarray and on the floor, and the various bags that housed her clothing were all ripped and scattered throughout the floor, their contents everywhere. She noticed that a few of her more notable items, such as a sparkly top she'd once gotten on a girls trip with Rose and Paige, were definitely missing from bundles, along with minor articles like belts.

She wondered if she was supposed to feel horrified, but if anything, Rey was surprised the man hadn't burnt it all in a barrel as soon as he'd gotten the chance. Luckily, he'd missed the bags she'd very carefully hidden in the opening in the mattress that she'd cut one night that seemed so long ago. After grabbing her extra dobok from her mattress spot, she double-checked the loose floorboards to the basement and grabbed the extra set of protective padding for her hogu she'd bought a few months earlier.

There wasn't much else to take. It wasn't like the place had ever been home, and after bouncing from one foster family to another, Rey had learned that it was best not to have much to bring with you. It only took them one trip up the stairs to carry everything she needed out of the house.

She kept her senses sharp and focused in case Unkar came in to ruin her life one last time, but her never did. She heard motion in one of the other rooms, and  _maybe_  a muffled curse, but it could just as easily have been Master Luke trudging along, carrying a small library's worth of books.

Ben was waiting with the trunk of the car popped, seeming just as confused and curious as Rey.

"Where's Plutt?" he asked, his voice still holding that dangerous edge from earlier. "I didn't see him leave."

Luke fixed him with a stare that made even Rey feel shame by proximity.

"Don't worry about it."

And then they packed her stuff in the car, and Rey stubbed her toe on the sidewalk, at which point it finally sunk in that this was  _real_.

Ben sat in the back. Rey joined him. She was so shocked, and so numb all at the same time that she barely noticed him take her hand and clasp it tight.

Neither of them said a thing as they watched the house disappear behind them as they turned the corner towards her new life.

* * *

One week later, and Rey didn't feel different.

She was still the same sixteen year old who still had a bit of trouble skating across the diner's floor while balancing a tray, and she was still the same girl who dreaded the sort of questions Master Luke might ask during training. She still tossed and turned most nights, dreaming of the parents she couldn't remember. She still woke up expecting to hear a bang and a shout from upstairs, only to always realize there was no one above her now, and that Master Luke was actually a very quiet man in the mornings.

It was odd. She thought she'd feel different. Everyone had been telling her  _Red Belt is when everything changes_. She even believed it too, when the events from a week ago had come to a head.

And sure, her life had basically just done a 180. Rey lived with Luke now. It had only been a week, but he helped her move into the room that was now hers, unpacking her clothes into a dresser he'd purchased. He'd tried getting her what he considered a proper bed, but she'd managed to convince him that the daybed was good enough. If he'd paid more attention to what she'd been sleeping on before, he would have understood that the daybed was more than she'd ever expected.

"So, how's Red Belt feel?"

Rey snapped back to the present, and looked up at Ben. Promotion had just finished up, and the belt had been tied around her for all of twenty minutes. But still, if something was going to feel different, it would by now,  _right?_

"Uh...it seems the same, I guess," she shrugged.

Ben considered her seriously.

"Is everything still the 'same', then?" he asked, jerking his head towards Master Luke. He seemed tense.

Promotion had been marked with unremarkable events. Oh, it still sucked about as much as having kangaroos use your stomach as a springboard for ten hours, and her limbs had attained that rumored numb nirvana she'd heard the senior students talk about, about three hours after her body's limits had been reached, but overall, there had been no new curve-balls thrown her way. She'd advised a couple of white belts who'd been having trouble with their breaks, and even managed to do it without breaking into a rant this time too, so she counted that as a win.

Somehow, she didn't think Ben was asking about Taekwondo though.

"He hasn't said anything to me about it," Rey admitted, wincing a little and looking over to make sure Master Luke hadn't heard her. The topic of Unkar Plutt had been handled with a (still surprising) amount of severity from both Leia and Luke, whenever she'd come around, and they'd kept Rey as informed as she'd been willing to hear. Which was not at all. "He's said he's been taking care of things."

Rey was well-versed in the difficult and often frustrating art of interpreting Ben Solo's facial cues, but even she was having trouble with the expression he currently wore. His jaw seemed to strain, as if he were holding himself back from saying something.

After a few seconds of stiff silence, Ben's expression twisted and he let out a strained, "I see."

He looked her over, and for once, a glimmer of warmth appeared as he gave her a soft smile.

"Congratulations kid," he said, an undercurrent of pride in his delivery. "It's not easy, getting this far. A lot of people quit by this point."

Rey thought back to her meltdown in the Dojang that seemed like a lifetime ago. "I...thought about it," she confided, her voice lowering just a bit as a pair of cheerful new Orange Belts passed them by. "I almost did."

"Oh?" Ben seemed surprised. "What made you want to stay then?"

 _You did_ , her libido wanted to say. He was still a little sweaty from earlier, and it showed in how his dobok draped and hugged him. His hair was tousled and his eyes had an intensity that she would only secretly admit to dreaming about (once or twice only, of course). It made her already insensate knees weak, and part of her hated how she sounded like a cheesy romance novel, but dammit if it didn't actually feel good.

Even so, Ben Solo was not the reason she stayed on so long.

"I wanted to see it through, I guess," Rey evaded. She looked to where Master Luke was amicably talking with various families and friends who had come to watch Promotion. "It didn't sit right with me, just stopping in the middle like that."

Ben sighed and ran his hand through his (gorgeous) hair. "It never stops you know."

"What?"

"Taekwondo. Martial arts. This," he gestured to the room at large, "It only stops when you want it to. Even then, it tends to follow you around."

There was something off with his tone when he said that, something tired and frustrated but she could tell it wasn't directed at her. She couldn't stop the knot of worry that formed in her gut though. "Is everything alright?"

Ben grunted and shook his head. After a moment he then asked, "It wasn't Plutt, was it?"

Again with Plutt! Rey frowned as she replied. "What about him?"

"He wasn't the reason you-" Ben awkwardly gestured to her newly acquired Red Belt, "y'know. Started this. To protect yourself?"

"What!" she exclaimed, "No!"

(Maybe a little bit, yes.)

Ben seemed to intuit her hesitation. "Are you sure?" he pressed, "Because if it was bad enough that-"

"Ben," Rey interjected, a familiar weariness draining into her system, "Please, drop it. Master Luke is taking care of it."

She believed it, too. Ben hadn't seen how Master Luke looked that night when he found out. He hadn't seen Rey lose all semblance of control and devolve into nothing more than a crying, raving whelp. He hadn't seen Master Luke take her, help her, and - most shockingly of all - want her to stay. Ben hadn't seen any of that and Rey realized that Master Luke hadn't told him any of it either.

She felt a rush of affection for the older man, even as it finally dawned on her why her faith in Master Luke must seem so strange to Ben.

"I'll take your word for it, kid," Ben said ominously, before plastering an obviously fake smirk on his face and waving to his uncle, who was now looking at them. "But…"

He stopped himself mid-sentence, and shook his head before walking away.

* * *

The plate Luke placed in front of her was loaded with delicious-smelling food. Herb dazzled roasted chicken breast, baked potato that still had a little of the butter coat, aromatic veggies that entranced and drew in the unsuspecting...all smothered in a thick golden gravy.

Rey's mouth watered. She couldn't stop herself from eyeballing the cornucopia of delicious smelling food, and she wondered who'd cooked the meal. She knew Master Luke couldn't cook worth a darn, so it was more than a little shocking to see such a spread in his apartment. She didn't say that, obviously.

Rey waited for Luke to join her with his own plate before eating, and when he finally did, she finally stopped restraining herself. One bite, barely a full one considering the speed at which she'd picked up the fork, and she'd already closed her eyes, savoring the rich texture of the food, unable to stop herself from smiling in bliss.

"This is  _amazing_ ," she said finally. There was so much food. She wondered where Luke had bought it. Hopefully he hadn't spent too much.

"I thought we could do with a nice meal after today's promotion," Luke smiled knowingly. "So, are you excited about being a Red Belt?"

She nodded, and then frowned. "I...guess?"

"Oh?"

Luke looked expectant. As if he'd known what she were thinking.

(For all she knew, he did. He was dotty, and bit too gruff with people, to the point most thought him rude, but now and then there was a hint of wisdom that made her re-evaluate her master.)

"I just," Rey pondered on the best way to verbalize her thoughts without sounding like a snob, "I thought things would feel different. Like I'd get a vision of the future or something."

Luke snorted and had to wipe his beard of stray bits. "This isn't magic, kid. We aren't monks either. We're martial artists."

It warmed her to hear him use "we", even if part of her probably would never get used to the casual brevity to it all.

"But," Luke chuckled. "That does remind me of something we still need to talk about."

Rey felt her nose twitch nervously. Luke sounded delightfully foreboding when he said that. "What about?"

"Your private lessons, kid," Luke's smirk was sardonic and a little condescending. She could see where Ben learned it from. "You didn't think I'd forgotten about last Friday, did you?"

Rey flushed even as she hid it under a groan. "No more essays,  _please_ , I promise I've learned my lesson about selling homework."

And honestly, the less she were reminded of how she'd acted, the better. She wished she could say she'd blacked out, but unfortunately her dreams had constant reruns of the highlight reels from that display of hers. She still hadn't apologized to Poe yet either…

"You've written enough essays. Actually, I almost ran out of topics," he admitted. "No, I know you know the ethics up here," he pointed to her head, "but the next part is about getting the rest of you in line with them."

Rey swallowed the bite of food in her mouth. It landed in her gut like hollow gruel.

"You've been through a lot, kid," Master Luke continued. "More than you ever should have had to go through, and I'm guessing those experiences are responsible for much of that anger you keep holding back and letting out."

Rey wanted to protest, but she found she couldn't even think of the words to counter his own.

"Your temper is going to get you in trouble one day, and you need to get it under control, especially if you want to keep practicing with the Dojang." Luke sighed and then stared at her, gravely. "I'd be remiss as a teacher if I let you off from your outburst without addressing the situation. The root cause is being handled, but you've got to meet me halfway on this part kid."

She went to say something, but cut off mid-sentence at him raising a hand. "Think on it. Let's at least finish dinner. This not an easy decision to make."

The finished the meal in relative silence, the food no longer as appetizing as earlier, even if it objectively was the most delicious food she'd ever savored. She churned the Master Luke's proposal in her head the whole time. Private training sounded exciting to an outsider, but Rey knew through her interactions with Ben and time around the Dojang that private training really meant personalized torture.

Even Ben didn't leave private sessions unscathed.

After putting the plates in the dishwasher, the two of them retreated to the living room, where two large recliners and a couch were set up. Master Luke never entertained much company, and instead of a television, he had massive bookshelf lines with various hardcovers and paperbacks, equal parts fiction and nonfiction.

Master Luke sat down and faced her. "Have you decided?"

Her gut instinct was to say no. Maybe they'd negotiate something else. Find some other way.

Then she remembered the girl in the mirror.

"What sort of things will we cover?"

A mildly concerning - scratch that,  _very_  concerning - mischievous smile spread across Luke's face. "You'll see. We'll be starting next weekend."

* * *

"Add five minutes."

Rey frowned and resisted the urge to shuffle in place. She'd learned her lesson from earlier.

Things passed in relative quiet. The two of them sat within the Dojang, lights dim and expressions grim, with both of them facing the mirror. They wore their dobok, each as unwrinkled as the day they were bought, and Rey's blood colored belt felt as stiff on her form as it did last week.

She'd thought special training would have been a lot more exciting than this.

"Stop thinking," Master Luke said, his eyes never leaving his own reflection. "You're thinking so loud I can hear it from here."

That made no sense!

"Let's go for another ten minutes."

At first she'd thought this was going to be meditation. She would have been fine with that. It would've even been a little cool, getting to learn all the mystical and frankly perplexing tricks her Master used to stay so collected and ahead of everyone in the Dojang.

But he wasn't even letting her focus on anything!

They were just sitting, looking at their reflections in the mirror.

She could hear the ticking of the clock hanging above the mirror. She could feel the vibrations in the floor from the parking lot outside. It was a blisteringly hot day, unusual for September, and Master Luke had purposefully left the A/C off when they'd walked in. She could literally feel her pores opening and her sweat starting to run down her neck and the rest of her body, each bead feeling like it was carving a divot in to her skin.

The room was muggy, and the added humidity from yesterday's rain seemed to clog up her lungs. It felt like she was trying to breathe underwater.

"You are wondering what the point of this is, I take it?" Master Luke said, rising from his kneeling position, and rolling his neck.

Rey kept her mouth shut. She wasn't falling for that one again.

Master Luke nodded. There was a small little smile on his face. "Good, you're learning. Kuman."

Rey relaxed, her previously stiff position melting. Her arms, which had been held in her lap, palms facing up, and she relished in the chance to finally curl her fingers Her joints ached and her body hurt in ways she hadn't expected from just sitting. They'd started two hours ago, around 11AM, and it was about a quarter past one now. Her neck felt like rubber, and her head lolled side to side as she luxuriated in her ability to just  _move._

She'd been fine for the first half hour. She was used to being quiet and not making much noise. But just not moving, letting the whole world just keep going on and on without her? She would have had more fun watching paint dry.

"That," Rey floundered for a word that wouldn't sound too rude before she gave up, "sucked. That  _really_  sucked."

"Good. That's the point."

She shot him a baleful glare. Master Luke had told her that just like this, just the two of them, provided there was no blatant disrespect, they could talk more casually. Something about genuine interaction without the social boundaries that a more formal environment prevented.

It helped that she'd seen him try cooking pasta. The man was worse than Ben. There was no coming back from seeing a grown man flounder and fluster with the pin of a fire extinguisher for a pot of alfredo sauce that somehow  _caught fire._

"So, are you curious?"

It occurred to Rey that Master Luke was potentially of an evil villain in the guise of a kindly old Taekwondo instructor. No one should be able to enjoy one's suffering like this.

"Something about learning patience?" She couldn't help the bite in her words.

Master Luke made a so-so gesture with his hand. "Eh, patience is a side-effect."

"Calm?"

The man just grunted.

"Inner peace?"

"You're just spouting off words that you think will fit the situation now," he scolded, but his smile didn't leave.

Rey shrugged helplessly. "I'm not sure what you're looking for here Master Luke."

"Frustration. Anger. Anxiety," Master Luke listed off. "All things that you have plenty in abundance of and that I'm sure you felt just now. Can you honestly say that you were one hundred percent comfortable with just sitting here? Don't think I didn't see those looks you shot at me when I had to take that call."

She blushed, and looked down at the floor shamefacedly.

"Exactly," Master Luke's voice turned kind. "I'm starting you off easy kid. Tell me honestly, do you feel tired?"

Even though they'd been doing nothing but sit still for two hours straight, she couldn't deny it. "Yes. I feel," she thought for a moment, "drained. Off somehow. Unbalanced"

"I'm not going to get into the metaphysical mumbo-jumbo here, but that?" Luke pointed at her, "That's you. Unbalanced. Now don't worry, plenty of people are. I don't think I've ever met a person who doesn't have a bit of darkness in them, but a good number of people are too far in one direction or the other. That's what we're here to figure out. How to correct it."

"How are we going to do that?"

"Most of this is going to be on you," he explained. "We are going to break you, Rey Kenobi. You are going to learn what it is like to hate yourself, the blood in your veins, and the air you breathe through this training. My master did this for me, and I did this with Ben. Through this effort, you will become more than you are. You won't become magically better overnight, but I hope that one day, you'll look back on this moment kindly and wish you didn't want to punch my face in, because believe me, at some point during this training, you will.

"You will want to cry. You will want to walk away," Master Luke kneeled down and clapped his hand on her shoulders, "And you will have that power to."

Rey was bewildered. Bewildered and more than a little intimidated by the sudden speech. "What?"

"Always remember kid," Master Luke looked her seriously in the eye, "you are here because you want to be. I will never judge you for stepping off this path, because believe me, it's not an easy one, and part of me will always wonder if the things I put myself through were worth it."

There was an old haunt behind those eyes. A regret and a dream tied together and thrown into a vault.

"I can do it," she affirmed, hoping to assure him of her success. "I'm not stopping sir."

"I know kid," Master Luke said, both proud and mischievous all of a sudden, "now that's enough of a break. Let's walk."

Confused, Rey followed suit and stood up. He gestured for her to follow him, and he fell into a slow meandering step that seemed to have no rhythm. She had to stay a very specific distance behind him, not too close, nor lagging too far behind. The alternating speed he seemed to expertly maintain made the objective unfairly difficult.

After the first two agonizingly slow loops around the Dojang, Rey realized what he intended. "We are going absolute silence again. No talking until I let you at ease."

One word rang through her mind.

_Fuck._

* * *

Considering it was a Monday, and Rey was still sore from a miserable one-on-one training she'd had the day before, it was going better than she'd expected. Of course, she was only halfway through the day, which meant she still had Chemistry to look forward to.

Chemistry was a pretty fun subject, Rey thought. She'd managed to get a questionably-sane teacher who seemed more interested in determining whether or not hand sanitizer would light on fire (the man actually tested it in front of the class, and  _no_ , it didn't create the sort of spectacular flame he'd been hoping for), and she was regularly amused by the man's antics.

During their second week of class, he seemed to think it would be a good idea to prank the incoming freshman, and his idea of a prank involved faking a small explosion in the classroom while Rey and all her classmates ran screaming out into the hall, terrifying the poor freshman who were on their way to class.

Rey and her classmates thought it was hilarious.

Principal Holdo? Not so much.

Since that event, the class had become a tad more somber, but it was still one of the better ones Rey had. She'd originally been uneasy when Liam was assigned to her dream-team lab group that only included Rose and Finn (and herself, of course), but it was actually turning out to be a lot less uncomfortable than she'd predicted it would be.

She'd forgotten that he was fun. And nice. Obviously there were reasons their relationship hadn't worked, but he seemed happy to turn over a new leaf as her friend, and considering they were stuck as lab partners for the year, it seemed like a good idea.

(And if she accidentally dumped dye on his shirts, well, the lab tables were cramped and really, who told him to wear bright orange to class? The boy practically looked like a traffic cone.)

"Rey, did you add the hydrogen peroxide?"

She kept reading the lab assignment sitting on the table in front of her and answered Finn, "50 mL, right?"

After a few seconds of silence, Rey looked up to see why Finn hadn't answered. She was greeted to a view of her two friends and one sort-of-friend-sort-of-awkward-ex all looking at her with wide eyes.

"Uh, no…" Rose finally said. "It was supposed to be 5 mL."

Finn cleared his throat and looked uncomfortably at the mixture in the beaker, which was currently being heated. "Uh, guys, this isn't going to explode or something, right?"

Liam groaned. "Leave it to Rey to blow up the chemistry classroom. I knew I should have double checked the paper. There's no way we needed that much hydrogen peroxide."

Thankfully, Rose came to the rescue when she saw the dejected, embarrassed look on Rey's face. "Guys, don't get so worked up. It's not going to explode," she scoffed. "You really think they'd let us play with chemicals that we could use to blow things up that easily? Right now it's literally just water and peroxide. It's not a big deal, we'll just need to start over."

Rey breathed a sigh of relief, taking another moment to thank whatever higher power existed for the fact that Rose was part of the group. If Rey ended up not accidentally (or mayhaps intentionally) killing one of the guys ( _cough_ Liam _cough_ ), it would almost definitely be thanks to her.

Just as Rey was measuring out the proper amount (with the eyes of all three of her lab partners on her), Principal Holdo walked into the Chemistry classroom.

Their teacher shrunk back a bit, likely hoping to avoid another run-in after the fake explosion incident, but Principal Holdo offered him a warm smile, and said just loudly enough for everyone to hear, "I just need to speak with Ms. Kenobi in my office. We'll be back in twenty minutes, is that alright?"

The blood drained from Rey's face, and suddenly Rose was hissing across the worktable, " _Rey_ , you didn't! I thought you stopped?"

"Stopped what?" Liam asked. Oh, right, because she  _definitely_  hadn't told him about selling homework, which was probably what Rose was referring to. (Ugh, she hated that she wondered if that would have made her more weird to him).

"I'm sure it's nothing," Rey said finally, forcing her lips into a smile. "And no, Rose, I didn't, don't worry. I think I know what this is about, and it's nothing bad."

 _Lie_.

She had no freaking clue why Holdo wanted to see her and Rey wanted nothing more than to sink into the floor and never, ever, go back to Holdo's office again. It wasn't that Principal Holdo wasn't a lovely woman. She was great, actually...at least while outside of school. She'd joined Rey, Luke, and Ben for a few meals in the previous two years, and Rey still didn't dare to call her Amilyn in private, but she was really nice.

That didn't mean Rey wanted to be in her office, though.

Rey followed her down the hall and around a corner before the entered her office and Rey reluctantly took a seat across from her. Principal Holdo didn't  _look_  angry, so that was a good sign... _right?_

The fact that she'd closed the door behind them was mildly concerning, though.

"Hi, Rey."

Her voice wasn't angry, but it wasn't happy either. If Rey wasn't mistaken, it was almost...melancholic?

"You're not in trouble," the woman assured, apparently able to read the concern on Rey's face. "Luke and Leia confided in me about your situation. Leia's been a good friend of mine and her and I are going to try and get the legal aspects of your address and guardianship change under control. I don't want you to worry, but I do want to make sure that you feel safe and comfortable."

Rey wasn't exactly relieved, but at least she wasn't in trouble. She took a breath and tried to relax. Even if the principal had said she wasn't in trouble, the situation wasn't the easiest to unwind in. Still, that she'd come in person instead of using the school's intercom system showed how discreet she wanted this to be, for which Rey was grateful.

"I'm sorry I didn't say anything," she finally said. Rey was starting to get used to apologizing, even if part of her still didn't understand why it was important. The reality was, before the truth came out she hadn't really realized how many adults not only cared about her, but were willing to actually help change her living situation. She was still surprised to find a warm bed in the room every night.

"Don't apologize," Holdo said softly. "You've been through enough. You don't owe me an apology. I'd rather have your honesty. Luke's said you've been living with him, and I just want to hear from you about it. Are you happy living there? Luke's willing to become your guardian, if Leia and I can get that sorted out, but I want to make sure that's what you want. If it's too much, we've got some ideas that might help you transition more easily. Emancipation wouldn't be easy but-"

"It is," Rey interjected, "What I want, I mean."

The truth was, Luke was the closest she'd gotten to having family, even though he'd only been in her life for two years. "Living with him has been great," she smiled broadly, thinking of the last few weeks. "I have a room with an actual bed, and we watch movies, and cook, and the fridge is never empty, and sure, last time I got in trouble for something my punishment was extra pushups and that kind of sucked, but I don't feel like I have to sleep with something propped against my door, and I'm not afraid to go home, and-"

She stopped mid-sentence when she saw the look on Holdo's face. It was one of shock.

Right. People were  _usually_  shocked to hear about kids being in living situations like she had with Plutt. Rey wasn't sure when that way of living had started feeling normal for her, but she really needed to remember that it was hardly the norm.

"I-I'm sorry," Rey stuttered.

"No," Holdo interrupted, "don't be. Please. Luke didn't tell me everything, I guess. But don't apologize, that's not your fault. I'm just sorry you were dealing with that."

There was an awkward moment of silence before she spoke again. "Well, Rey, that's all I really needed to talk about. I'm glad to hear Luke's taking good care of you. I'm not surprised - he's always been good with kids." Her eyebrow raised a bit, "Especially the troublemakers."

Rey had the good sense to look a bit embarrassed, and looked down at the floor.

"Rey," she said quietly, "If you ever need anything, or if you ever just need to talk, I hope I'm on the list of people you feel like you can talk to."

She considered it for a minute before nodding, and replying honestly, "You are, Principal Holdo."

The woman smiled, and winked, "When it's just us, or when we're outside of school, it's Amilyn, okay?"

Rey smiled back. "Okay. Thanks... _Amilyn._ "

Nope, still sounded weird.

* * *

The week flew by, thankfully without any more Chemistry-related mishaps, and Rey was... _happy_. She genuinely couldn't remember a time when she'd felt so weightless and stress free, and when Luke greeted her every day with breakfast and a packed lunch (he insisted that he could pack her lunches that were healthier than whatever the school was offering), she almost ugly cried a bunch of happy tears.

Finn and Rose had picked up on the change, but they hadn't said much except to comment on how good her lunches looked. Luke may not have been a great cook, but every day one of his nerdy tin lunch-boxes was filled with delicious sandwiches, sliced fruits, cut vegetables with dip, and, more often than not, more than a few cookies. The man was spoiling her, or rather, he was taking care of her, and Rey was thankful for every minute of it. She worried he was going a little overboard for fear of upsetting her again, but she couldn't bring herself to admit that it didn't feel good not to worry about how she was going to afford food for the week.

Luke had cancelled Friday's practice in favor of having a longer Saturday practice and poomse-workshop, so Rey was heading directly to Finn's after school like Rose usually did, and the three were determined to get through the entire season of a Twilight-Zone reboot Finn's gran had found and bought for them. Rey was convinced it would be awful, but Finn argued that most of the movies they picked were purposefully awful. Rose agreed with him, and Rey finally gave up, acknowledging that the majority had spoken.

"So are we thinking pizza, burgers, or chinese? Gran's going out tonight, so we'll have to order something."

Rey was setting up the first disc of the season they were watching, and looked back at Finn to give him a shrug.

"Is pizza okay?" Rose piped up from the next room. She'd gone in search of more pillows and Rey was half-convinced the girl had plans to build some sort of pillow fort.

"Sounds good to me," Finn called back. "Toppings?"

Rey rolled her eyes. "Every time you ask, I say the same thing and then you guys start giving me a hard time."

"That's because pineapple doesn't belong on pizza!" Rose laughed, finally returning with another half-dozen pillows.

"Seriously Rose, how many pillows do we need?" Finn asked before turning back to Rey. "But she's right, Rey, pineapple, on  _pizza_?" He cringed, and pretended to gag.

"Whatever," Rey shook her head, laughing. "But I'm not the only one who likes it! Ben and Luke both like Hawaiian."

Finn scoffed. "Somehow I'm not surprised the scary ninja guy likes weird stuff on his pizza."

"Scary  _ninja guy?_ " Rey gasped, her jaw dropping a bit. "Do you  _seriously_  call him that?"

He had the good sense to blush and look a bit embarrassed. "Well you have to admit, the guy's a bit scary."

After a few seconds of silence, Rey and Rose both burst out laughing at their friend.

"Finn," Rose choked out between laughs, "that's- the most- ridiculous- thing-..."

"Oh shut up!" Finn was smiling, and shaking his head. "You two suck. I'm ordering a supreme and a pepperoni. You lost the right to pick when you started laughing at me."

"Eh," Rey shrugged, "that's fine with me. You know me, I'm not going to turn down pizza."

Rose nodded, agreeing.

Finn looked a bit defeated when he realized the girls weren't a bit disappointed with his choice, but sighed and left the room to place the order. It was probably better that he left, because as soon as he did, Rose met Rey's eyes and mouthed the words " _scary ninja guy_ " and the two fell into another ridiculous fit of giggling.

Pizza arrived within twenty minutes, and by the time it got there the girls had finally settled down and stopped giving Finn shit for his choice of nicknames. They ate pizza in silence, watching the ridiculously terrible reboot that started with the story of a gated community that turned rebellious teenagers into tree fertilizer. It was odd, to say the least. They'd mostly given up watching halfway through the second episode in favor of bitching about Spanish and laughing about their Chemistry teacher.

When the subject of Chemistry came up, Rose got a bit quiet.

"What's up?" Rey asked, noticing her friend's silence.

Rose looked nervously at Finn, who nodded encouragingly. "It's not much, Rey, but we were wondering what happened on Monday. With Principal Holdo." She paused for a minute, then added, "Are you in trouble again?"

"Oh," Rey sighed. "No. I'm not. Principal Holdo is...helping me with something."

Finn's brow furrowed. "Helping with what?"

"You don't have to tell us if you don't want," Rose offered, "you've just seemed a bit different lately. Happier, I think. And, that's good, obviously, but it seems like something's changed, and if you want to talk about it…"

"Yeah," Rey nodded finally, "yeah, I'll tell you guys. I should have told you when it happened, but...honestly, the idea of telling people this stuff is kind of new."

So she took a deep breath, and told her friends the truth, focusing her eyes on the floor because she knew she probably couldn't handle the shocked expressions they undoubtedly wore. Rey told them about everything Plutt had done, the lengths at which she'd gone to hide it, and everything that had happened since Luke and Ben found out.

She finished the long explanation by adding, "The worst part is, I think Ben's been avoiding me. He still comes to practice, but he's been really intense and focused during class. Whenever we talk all he's asked about is if I'm ok, and if I know anything about Plutt."

Rey took a breath and tried not to let the lingering well of doubt that'd been building up the past couple of weeks show. "It's like...it's like he doesn't think I can handle this. That I'm ok now. Master Luke has been handling things, but things still feel weird."

Intense and focused only lightly described Ben lately. He was always a model student in class, but Rey was starting to think there was a thing as too perfect. As the highest-ranking student, Ben was frequently asked to help demonstrate or lead the class, and lately it felt he was always half a second ahead faster, his forms inhumanly perfect. It wasn't truly that different from before, but Rey was fully aware of how exhausting maintaining perfect composure like that for so long could strain a person, and she wondered what he was holding back.

She shrugged and slowly looked up at her friends. Both of them looked about what she expected, even if there was less pity than she'd expected.

(No, not pity. Sympathy.)

After a minute, Finn cleared his throat. "Okay, so I still think he's scary, but I'm kinda with Ben on that one. Someone should have killed that guy."

"Finn!" Rose gasped. "That's not something to joke about."

"Who said I was joking?" Finn grumbled darkly.

Rey considered it for a minute, realizing her friend probably  _wasn't_  joking.

Something in Finn's tone reminded her of what Ben said.

' _Sometimes you_ kill  _it if you have to.'_

She trusted Ben, and even if his insistence that she was just a kid grated on her sense of self-respect, she was grateful that he cared enough to act against Unkar on her behalf. She trusted him not to do something stupid

She could only hope that trust was not unfounded.

* * *

It was amazing how quickly Rey had gotten used to sleeping on Luke's guest - correction,  _her_  - bed. After three weeks of sleeping in her new bed, Finn's grandmother's guest room mattress had gone from her favorite place to crash on to an awkward lumpy misshapen back killer.

It was still, and forever would be, better than Unkar's though.

After trying and failing at making pancakes and waffles (Rey wondered if anyone in her life could cook), they heated up some pop tarts and lounged about in the living room, challenging each other to come up with fairy tales based on the people in their life. (Rose had cast Rey as a warrior princess who needed to trick an evil warlock  _(cough_ Liam _cough_ ) into releasing a curse on her squire, the completely fictional Mr. Den Colo. Rose was both the best and worst friend someone could ask for).

Eventually Rey had to bid them goodbye and left to head back to the Dojang.

Training with Luke started early that morning, with the two of them going through the mind-numbing and infuriating exercise of just looking at her reflection for hours again, followed by suicides until she collapsed when she asked for something different.

Followed by more sitting.

By comparison, the actual class had been a breeze. Her exhaustion from the day bled over and she'd goofed on some basic steps in her poomse, but Master Luke was surprisingly kind in pointing it out.

She was still keenly aware of the looks she was garnering from everyone around her, and she could feel their stare bore into the back of her head when they thought she wasn't looking, but she still didn't know how to address the without seeming like a bitch. Most treated her like she was about to go off on them, and she couldn't blame them.

(Maybe that was the secret. Maybe she just had to just suck it up and accept she was kind of bitchy. And then apologize for it.)

Saturday's lesson had finally finished up, and Rey was changed up and ready to leave the Dojang to head to Maz's diner for her evening shift when she heard voices coming from Luke's office.

"-can't  _believe_ you're just going to let this go!"

 _Ben?_  Rey hadn't seen him in a few days. When he missed two classes in a row, she'd been a bit surprised, but she hadn't thought much of it. It wasn't like he never took a day off.

He'd been coming by the diner, according to Maz. Just not whenever Rey was on duty, which was more than telling, because Ben had made sure to memorize her schedule so he'd know when to come by and mooch free stuff off her employee's discount. He'd also taken to never staying alone in the same room as her, always leaving on some errand and very rarely talking to her, unless it was about Plutt, in which case his face would get that tense and dangerous look that could make even some of the other black belts look the other way. The only answer she'd gotten out of Luke had just been a thankful nod, and him telling her that he would handle it, and that  _Ben was a hothead and that he needed time to deal with things. I suggested he take a couple of days off to think thing over._

"You need to understand, Ben," she heard Luke explain. "It's not that simple."

"Actually, it  _IS_  that simple," Ben snapped furiously.

Rey tucked into the corner of the Dojang, knowing it was a spot that couldn't be seen from the office where Luke and Ben were having their argument. She knew listening in was  _highly_  disrespectful, but Luke sure as hell wouldn't tell her what was going on with Ben, so it seemed like her only option.

"He hurt her Luke, so tell me, exactly  _how the fuck_  is this situation complicated?"

Rey froze.

This was about her.

"Well you've sure as hell made it complicated, haven't you?" Luke yelled, his infinite patience finally waning. "Now he's getting a restraining order. We're damn lucky you didn't get your hands on him or this conversation would be taking place in a jail cell. What were you  _thinking_ going over there?"

"I was thinking that he doesn't deserve to be walking around anymore!"

"Kid, SIT DOWN _,_ " Han's stern, gruff voice sounded from the room.

Dear God, Han was there too? There might as well have been napalm, nitroglycerin, and a dash of plutonium in that room for how explosive things were shaping up to be.

"Why should I?" Ben shouted. "What, so you can try to convince me that everything's fine? You really think I can just look the other way? Fuck, you saw those bruises. You know damn well she wasn't being taken care of, and who knows what sort of shit that asshole put her through? Luke, it's  _Rey_. I didn't get involved because I thought you were going to do something about this, and now, what, you just want me to forget it ever happened? You can't ask me to do that!"

The room was silent for a moment, and Rey's heart pounded as she tried to make her breathing as quiet as possible.

Luke sighed, "I'm just asking you to understand that we can't settle every issue by fighting. You can't just walk over there again and kill the guy, or hurt him or...anything. Especially now. A restraining order isn't just a suggestion. You need to stay away from him."

Ben huffed angrily, but Luke continued, "Okay, say you went back. Sure, then Plutt wouldn't be a problem anymore, but you'd end up in jail. Even if it's just assault, Ben, you have a Black Belt. You've been training heavily since you were a kid - you  _know_  it's considered assault with a deadly weapon. Any greasy haired lawyer who can string two words together would have you painted as a violent psychopath faster than I could whoop your arrogant ass."

Ben actually snarled. A deep rolling roar that started in his chest and made Rey physically tremble even from her position outside. She heard something heavy hit a surface - the table, likely - and several papers and other sundries hit the floor.

Luke's voice came, a frozen tundra or warning and command. "Whether you like it or not, the rules are a bit different for us. Even if you just put him the hospital - and I  _know_  you've thought about it - you'd end up with jail time and you know I'd have to take your belt. Do you really think that's what Rey would want?"

"Don't you  _dare_!" Ben hissed, "Don't act like I'm hurting her by going after that monster."

Rey jumped a bit as she heard a smattering of items flying against a wall.

"You know what, fuck this. Fuck you both. I don't care what you do - call the police, report me to the Taekwondo Federation, take my belt, whatever! I'm going to  _enjoy_  wrapping my hands around that bastard's neck. It'll be worth it."

"Not a chance," Han jumped in. "You're imagining things if you think I'm going to let you throw everything away on some asshole."

Rey glanced over in the direction of the office. They wouldn't be able to see her from the corner she was in, but she could see where the light from the office's open door poured out into the dark room, and she could see Han's outline blocking the office door, trapping Ben inside.

"Get out of my way," Ben demanded.

"Kid," Han grunted, "you're going to have to fight your way out of here."

"Fine with me."

Rey winced, hoping Ben wouldn't actually fight his father, but he must have tried, because after a few seconds she heard something make impact with the wall, and the whole ceiling shook. The clock on the wall above the mirrors teetered carefully, but did not fall down. She moved out to get a better look, she saw what looked like two holes slightly larger than a fist taken out of both sides of the door frame. She could just barely see Han holding Ben's arm against his back, one hand on his son's neck. She could see the older mans veins pulse with effort from here.

"You think I haven't gotten in plenty of fights before? I know I look old, but I think I can handle my own son." Han snorted. (Lies. The man looked ready to pass out just from holding Ben in that position.)

"Look, Ben, last time we had a conversation that lasted this long, your mother and I were shipping you off to come live here with Luke, and you got so pissed off that you cut us out of your life. I let that happen. And before that, I spent half your childhood leaving. I know that. I know I fucked up. But I'd really like to think that you wouldn't jump at the first chance to repeat my mistakes.

"From what I've heard, Rey doesn't exactly have family. You and Luke are the closest she's going to get - so  _pardon me_  for being so surprised that you'd be willing to spend your time in jail instead of spending it around her." Han hesitated, and Rey could picture him shooting Ben a familiar, cocky expression that Ben would never admit he'd inherited, "So kid, you gonna be like your dear old Dad and repeat my mistakes?"

Ben struggled more, and Rey saw Han clamp down harder on Ben's wrist. She could see the effort, the strain in his body language. Any more and Han would almost definitely lose the struggle. Why wasn't Luke helping, she wondered.

They fought for precious few seconds, but finally, with a final cry of rage, Ben bowed his head and relented.

Han let go immediately. Rey immediately saw him lean against the doorframe and cross his arms. She also saw the wobble in his knees and the shudder in his back. More posturing.

Everything was silent for a long, long minute. Finally, Ben exhaled a long, shaky breath and said, "Fine. I won't go after Plutt."

"I have your word on that?" Luke asked. "You won't do  _anything_  to him, or have anyone else do anything?"

"I said  _fine_ ," Ben snapped. "You have my word."

"Good," Luke sighed, relieved. Rey could see Han's shoulder sag, probably because he was feeling the same relief as Luke.

"Yeah, you have my word, Luke," Ben repeated, firmly. "But we're done. You won't train students who don't respect you and after this…" he paused. "After this you've lost my respect. I won't be your student. I can't pretend to respect someone who would leave Plutt breathing after what he did to her, especially when he could take in another kid. Did you even think about that?"

If Luke responded, Rey didn't hear it.

"That's what I thought," Ben huffed. He pushed past Han and yelled back to them on his way out of the Dojang, "Consider my training with you complete."

He stomped out of the building and slammed the door so quickly he didn't even see Rey, nevermind her shocked expression. Before she could even process what had just happened, he was gone.

_Gone._

Ben was  _gone_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Meditation, bonding, and a new friend. 
> 
> Taekwondo Notes:
> 
> Kuman: End fight/pose/whatever activity you're doing
> 
> I don't think we had any other technical terms here, but there are a few things we wanted to mention. First, the concept of a Master stripping a student's belts. Basically, if a student does something that's considered "unforgivable" a Master may have reason to strip their belts/rank. As far as what could cause this...it's certainly on a case by case basis. Beating someone to death (or close to it), as Ben would probably want to do with Plutt, would very likely result in being stripped of belts and banned (likely a lifetime ban).
> 
> As far as I know, it's uncommon for someone to be stripped of their belts and rank. If you're a colored belt, it might not be a big deal, because you can just go to a new Dojang and not tell them you've been stripped of your rank. It's an entirely different situation for a Black Belt. Once you get a Black Belt your name goes into a registry somewhere in Korea and any legit Dojang will absolutely look you up before you start training with them. If they look you up and see that you've been stripped of rank and banned, well, you're out of luck.
> 
> I think the only other thing we wanted to address was the "assault with a deadly weapon" thing. So I'm almost entirely sure that it's a myth that Black Belts have to register themselves as deadly weapons in some places. Neither of us have run into a situation where we've had to do that, and I've only ever heard of that in ridiculous movies. However, if a Black Belt initiates a fight (especially while using their Martial Arts training) the charges pressed could very well involve assault with a deadly weapon due to their training.
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> AttackoftheDC: So...please forgive me. I'm completely responsible for how this chapter ends, so if you feel the need to throw rotten vegetables or something, feel free direct them my way. I'll make it up to you eventually, I promise. We went into this knowing we couldn't keep Luke and Ben together in a happy personal/working relationship for long. At least nobody tried killing anyone mid-sleep, right?
> 
> I originally considered making this split considerably more permanent/dramatic/tragic, but realistically, these characters aren't the same as their canon versions. For one, nobody here has a lightsaber. Also, our Luke has had decades of formal training with his own Grand Master (Kenobi), which is something canon Luke never really got. Our Luke would probably be a lot less likely to consider killing his own nephew, and instead, he'd be weary of him, but know when to step back and give him the space he needs.
> 
> Similarly, our Ben hasn't been influenced by Snoke (...yet?) and while he clearly has some issues to work out, he's grown up with a fairly healthy relationship with his Uncle. He may have just effectively ended their working/training relationship, but Ben and Luke are still family, and despite what Ben might say in anger, I'd like to think there's still a lot of love and respect between the two.
> 
> Act II incoming. Also, my ridiculously wordy husband doubled the size of this chapter, so blame him for the delay.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire:
> 
> After many pokes from my dear wife, (literal ones, not Facebook ones. She just pokes me for the fun of it sometimes), I too have a tumblr. I'm still figuring this thing out, but if you have a question for me, or you want to tag me in something, go right ahead. I have no idea what I'm doing.
> 
> The training scene between Luke and Rey is something I'm hoping to expand upon in future scenes. I'm very much a fan of the "Old master ticks off his/her young student" trope, and this is a process that's going to take Rey a while to get through, because it's not just something to do with physically improving herself. Truthfully, Rey would have been better off picking something like Tai Chi, but she had the poor sense to stick with the Skywalkers. I blame Ben's hair.
> 
> Future chapters will not be this lengthy, or this delayed in getting out. Originally, this was supposed to be released Thursday but then Responsibility knocked on our doors and it's just such a rude houseguest, y'know? Took up the whole of two days. Yuck. This was the end of Rey's homelife arc, and a lot of things had to be wrapped up and cutting it in half didn't feel right. Future chapters will actually be reasonable lengths.
> 
> We're both on Tumblr!
> 
> [ AttackoftheDarkCurses](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 
[ thebuildingsnotonfire](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/) 



	17. Held at Red Belt, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally a LOT longer, but we split it in two for a few reasons. For one, we didn't want to wait another 3-4 days to post. For another, it made sense story-wise to split it, so that's what we decided to do.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


 

Rey was startled from her regular meditative position when Master Luke blasted an airhorn in the Dojang. She jumped from her sitting position, flailing halfway between standing and kneeling and awkwardly landing on her elbows. The fall sent a pair of sharp shocks up her arms, and she buckled, losing her balance, and collapsed on the floor.

She was vaguely aware of someone chuckling and then she realized it was Master Luke. She wanted to say something, but the still ringing gongs in her head resulted in her just saying, "Bleh."

It had been one week since Ben left. Since last Saturday, the barest notice she had gotten from him was Ben popping by the diner once on Wednesday to let her know he was going on a trip. He didn't say where. He also didn't say with whom. And the subject of how long was never brought up either. He never looked Rey in the eye the whole time and in truth she probably would have been happier if he hadn't shown up to begin with. Maybe she would have felt like less of a non-entity then. She felt ill when she realized this later, in the dark of her room, and her sleep that night had been fitful.

Master Luke had decided to try a slightly different training method today. She'd assumed a meditative stance, her legs tucked beneath her knees, and was told to get comfortable. He had expressly not forbidden movement today, and so Rey was finally able to relax just a little bit during the session.

Up until the grizzled old troll decided it was okay to scare the living bejeebus out of her with that airhorn.

"Today's lesson," Master Luke chuckled, "is going to be about maintaining composure."

Rey winced and gathered herself, sticking a pinky in her ear and wriggling inside. "By what? Killing my eardrums?"

"Your task is to meditate, while I," he raised the can gave it a jaunty shake, "will try to distract you."

Rey groaned. She was already getting a headache. "You're the devil, you know that?"

"What was that?" Master Luke asked, exaggeratedly cupping his ear, which she could see had ear plugs. "2 hours then? Alright, if you say so."

Grumbling, Rey resumed her meditative position. She'd never been very good at the whole breathing and centering herself aspect, and she had a bad feeling today was going make her previous experiences seem like a walk in the park.

Ten minutes in and three heart-stopping surprises later (all courtesy her still-grinning Master), she was proven right.

* * *

Rey wasn't sure exactly when things had changed, but it hit her one breezy Sunday morning when the orange and yellow leaves drifted from their trees and the chilly fall air started whipping through the streets. It wasn't a huge change, but Rey felt oddly warm and wonderfully happy when she realized it.

At some point in the month and a half he'd spent packing her lunches, at first awkwardly requesting, and then actually ordering her to get to bed (usually by 10PM), and anxiously waving goodbye as she left for school, Luke had become...close. Almost like family. Or at least as close to family as a sort-of-scary, sort-of-sweet Grandmaster could be.

As heartwarming as it was, Rey found she still had a hard time not focusing on and worrying about a different situation.

It had been exactly twenty days since she'd watched Ben stomp out of the Dojang.

(He hadn't returned since.)

There was no word from if he'd come back from his trip.  _If there even was a trip._  No one knew that she'd been there the night he walked out, but Master Luke did tell her later that evening, when they'd gathered for dinner, that there'd been a disagreement between he and Ben. Rey had trouble keeping composure when she heard him say that. He was likely aware that she knew the explanation was bullshit, but she was grateful he hadn't brought the subject up with her. She didn't know how she'd react.

Ben had quit, apparently, and it was all her fault.

(Realistically, it was probably a combination of hers, Master Luke's, Han's, Unkar's, and maybe even Ben's fault, but  _still_.)

Maybe if she'd just told them the truth from the beginning, he'd still be there. If she'd told them early enough, maybe just after her and Luke had discovered the truth about her relatives, maybe Luke still would have taken her in, and maybe Ben wouldn't have been so angry when he found out.

 _Maybe_.

And of course, since Luke could basically read minds, he sighed, and frowned at her over their matching plates of blueberry pancakes (courtesy of Maz). Having brunch together each Sunday before her shift had become a bit of a tradition, and until that morning, Luke had left the whole Ben situation well enough alone.

It seemed that he had a three-week limit on Rey's self-imposed guilt-fest.

"Rey," he said quietly, pouring a healthy (or rather,  _unhealthy_ ) amount of syrup on his pancakes, "do you want to tell me what's bothering you? A lot of things have changed in a short amount of time." He looked up at her awkwardly, "If you want to talk about it, we can."

Rey had learned something since the truth about Plutt had come out. Obviously telling Luke and Ben hadn't exactly been by choice, but telling them the whole truth, and telling her friends had been a choice she'd made. She'd expected to feel worse once people knew. Pitied, maybe.

She'd been wrong.

If anything, she felt stronger for it. For the first time in her life, she'd felt loved and cared for. She felt relieved, like a huge weight she'd never noticed was suddenly gone from her shoulders. She still woke up in a cold sweat, dreading a knock on the door that that would ship her off to some town on the other side of the country, into the hands of someone worse than Plutt, but that was happening less and less as of late.

It was like skydiving with little more than string and a blanket, but Rey thought she'd finally learned just how much the people around her cared. They were people she could cry in front of, show weakness in front of, and admit truths to. Even better, those people wouldn't think any less of her for any of it.

Rey looked up from her pancakes, and smiled sadly at Luke, and took another step towards maturity.

"You're right," she said, a but subdued and more than a little reluctant (she'd learned her lesson, but it was still an adjustment). Sighing, she put her fork and knife down and leaned back against the booth. She fought the urge to cross her arms in front of her, or to bring up her hoodie. "It's about Ben."

Luke's eyes flickered to the seat beside him, where Ben would usually sit when they'd all go out together. Nothing about his tone gave away how he felt. "Oh? What about him?"

"I'm worried," Rey said quietly. She shrugged. "I know it was his choice to leave, but I feel guilty about it. I'm worried that he'll regret it...and maybe he'll blame me."

Luke's eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head, considering her. "You feel like it's your fault?"

She nodded.

"Well, it isn't," Luke said kindly, if a little bluntly. "Like you said, it was Ben's choice to leave. I probably shouldn't say this, but I have a feeling Ben and I would have come to that sort of situation even if things hadn't happened this way. We don't exactly see eye to eye," he explained. "Besides, there were extenuating circumstances involved. Considering what he almost did..." Luke seemed to realize what he was saying and promptly stopped talking.

"What? What did he do?" Rey pressed. She knew what Luke was talking about. She wouldn't be able to forget the shake in her body or the way the Dojang seemed to tilt when Ben destroyed the doorframe to Luke's office. She was well aware of what kind of damage that would have done to Han's face had it hit.

She wanted Luke to talk about it, though. Ben had become a touchy topic between the two of them, with Luke doing his best to remain neutral on what was clearly a very painful subject, and Rey trying not to let it show just how much Ben's departure affected her.

Luke just shook his head with agitation, and muttered, "Don't worry about it kid."

Dammit. Fort Skywalker was as locked up as ever.

"But if I'd said something earlier this may never have happened," she argued, trying for a different angle. "Ben had every right to be upset. I lied about things for so long-"

"Rey," Luke interrupted. "Don't do that to yourself."

"It's true though," she responded resentfully.

He hesitated for a moment before asking, "You're afraid he's going to regret leaving, and blame you for being the reason he left?"

She nodded again.

"Is that why you've been avoiding him?"

Rey glanced up at him, pressing her lips into a thin line. It wasn't that she'd exactly been avoiding him. It was more like she hadn't been seeking him out. Though, Rey had to admit, not having burgers or ice cream, or a trip to the bookstore, or...anything really, with Ben in six weeks was an anomaly. Actually, since they'd become friends they'd never really gone more than a few days without hanging out outside of training. Seeing him stomp out of the Dojang halfway through the past six weeks didn't exactly count as hanging out.

"You're avoiding him," Luke repeated, "because you think he's mad at you? Or might be mad at you?"

"Yeah."

"Oh kid," Luke groaned. "You've got it all backward. If I know Ben, he probably thinks  _you're_  mad at  _him_."

Rey frowned. "I don't see why."

"You wouldn't," Luke chuckled, and suddenly he looked two decades younger. "Look, Rey. Want my advice?" He didn't wait for her response before continuing, "Just stop avoiding him. He's probably convinced himself that you hate him by now, for whatever reason, so explain why you've been avoiding him and you'll probably be all set. He and I may not be on good terms, but if anyone needs a friend, it's Ben."

"But I don't even know when he'll be back from his trip," she bit out bitterly, glaring down at her inappropriately cheerful pancakes. "He just showed up one day and said he was leaving town for a bit."

"You...know I have his number right?" Luke looked concerned. "Just because I think he's being an idiot doesn't mean I'm going to cut all ties with him."

Rey goggled at him. "Really?"

He gave her an unimpressed look. "I know I'm set in my ways, but I practically raised that boy. He's family. Dumb, pigheaded, family, but that's just like his father.

"Also," Luke's brow furrowed, "Ben came back a few days ago."

Rey's mouth dropped open. "I...really?"

He nodded, took out his old industrial, stone age flip phone, fiddled with some buttons and passed it to her. There was Ben's number, brightly lit by the ancient LCD backlight. "Here, want to give him a call?"

Part of her wanted to say yes. The other remembered the deep churning bog of guilt roiling in her stomach.

"I don't know…" Rey said bitterly. Luke was wrong. She certainly wasn't going to say it to his face, but whether she was right or not, Rey knew it in her bones. It was her fault. Maybe Ben didn't know that now, but he'd figure it out eventually, and when he did, he'd blame her. Maybe he'd hate her. She just knew it. All those years of training, all the brutal testings he'd gone through - it was all to get to the point where he could teach, and in an instant, thanks to her, he'd thrown it all away.

How could he  _not_  blame her?

"It's your call, Rey," Luke smiled, pocketing his phone, somehow oblivious to the gut-wrenching guilt she was feeling. Maybe the man couldn't read minds after all. "Now finish your pancakes."

She pushed the negative thoughts out of her head and snorted. "Yes,  _sir_."

He eyed her, and raised an eyebrow. "And watch the sass."

* * *

All in all, once Luke left with all of his well-meaning but unhelpful advice, it was a typical Sunday at the diner. Or, at least, it would be until Rey's shift ended.

The thing was, Rey had more than the one bridge to mend. She had a feeling the bridge between her and Ben was gone, or would be eventually if it wasn't already, but there was another one she could do something about.

 _Poe_.

He'd been pleasant enough toward her whenever they were at the Dojang together, but Luke had made a point to always pair them up with other students, and Rey hadn't gotten an opportunity to make amends. It didn't help that most of the students in the Dojang stopped letting themselves be alone with her. That moment when she found herself with a pair of orange belts in the locker room after practice and the two of them scampered away ranked among her top three awkward moments so far.

Actually, she'd had plenty of opportunities to make amends. She was just chicken.

Rey wasn't sure where she'd gotten the nerve, but at the end of Friday's practice she'd finally taken a deep breath and asked him to meet her at the diner for milkshakes. Poe, being the near literal personification of a dog, immediately agreed.

He'd be arriving in 30 minutes, when Rey's shift was scheduled to end, and her stomach was already flipping. She wasn't even sure what she'd say.  _Sorry_  seemed paltry for what she'd done.

_Hey Poe, sorry for attacking you. No harm done, right? Sorry about the medical bills. And the concussion. And the bloodstains. Let's be friends?_

Well, at least Rey knew well enough to be a bit more tactful than  _that_. Hopefully. If nothing else, she knew the man would find it amusing. There was seemingly no end to the things Poe found amusing.

"Hey kid," a gruff, but warm voice greeted, throwing her off that spiraling track of anxiety-inducing scenarios of what-ifs and how-tos.

She looked up and smiled at the familiar face, and noted that she'd never once seen him without the leather jacket. Today was no exception.

"Hi Han," she replied, tilting her head toward his usual empty booth. "Need a menu?"

"You know I don't," he chuckled. "Tell Maz I'll have my usual."

Rey nodded, and skated to the kitchen to relay the order to Maz, picking a handful of dirty dishes from one of the now-empty booths on the way.

A few minutes later she returned with an illicit beer. Officially, the diner didn't serve alcohol, and if asked, Rey absolutely hadn't been the one to open it, hand it to him, or even be in the same room as it. If Maz happened to keep his favorite beer around...well, nobody had to know about it.

"Thanks kid," he grinned, gesturing to the vacant seat across from him. "Join me. Place is a ghost town anyway."

"That better not be a comment on my business, Solo!" Maz shouted from the kitchen.

"I'm pretty sure my family's responsible for half your clientele, you old ghoul!" Han yelled back. "I can comment on your business any damn time I like. Also, you're ugly."

"Girlie, smack him for me will you? I need to get working on this order for an actual  _paying_  customer."

"Uhhh..."

Han rolled his eyes. "Don't listen to her, kid. She's just bitter she owes me from cards last night."

"You've got a crummy poker face, boy!" Maz threatened, this time coming to the kitchen window. The woman was five foot nothing, and had to use a little stool to get her head in the opening. "And you're a damn cheat, too!"

"Lando's the cheat!" Han laughed and waved her off. Maz retreated into the kitchen, audibly grumbling the whole while.

Han wasn't wrong about the amount of customers though. She'd just finished ringing up one of the last ones and they were already on their way out the door. The only one left was a half-deaf older man who sat quietly at the counter, doing his crossword. Their complete nonchalance in the face of Han and Maz's comedy routine said a lot about how often this happened.

"Okay."

Maz came out seconds later having somehow already whipped up food for both of them.

_Burgers and fries._

Hers was the usual veggie burger (predictable, but delicious), and much to Rey's amusement, Han's order was identical to Ben's, and suddenly she had a bad feeling she wasn't going to get to eat all of her own fries.

"So, Rey," Han started, "I hear you're living with my brother-in-law. I'm sure you're a welcome change after Ben. You're probably  _much_  easier to live with."

The protective bit in Rey wanted to lash out and defend Ben, until she saw Han's smirk and realized he was just joking around. She calmed down and rolled her eyes. "I think Luke would probably tell you otherwise."

"Yeah," Han chuckled, "I heard. Bit of a troublemaker, huh?"

Rey squirmed a bit in her seat. He wasn't exactly  _wrong_ , but it's not like that was something she wanted to admit to.

"I'm working on it," she said finally.

Han nodded, taking a bite of the burger he held. "Well," he said, mouth a bit full, "I'm glad. Between you and me, I was considering getting him a pet lizard. Or maybe a turtle. Something that doesn't die easily. He kept complaining about the house being too empty after Ben moved out, so it's good to see someone take care of him."

Rey smiled, and commented, "I think it's the other way around, Mr. Solo."

Han snorted. "Don't call me that, kid. Makes me think I did something wrong. Han's just fine." He dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and to her complete and utter lack of surprise grabbed one of her fries with his other hand. "And believe me you're doing him more good than you think. The man's got the whole  _serious warrior shtick_ going on, and if he could boil water without burning something I'm pretty sure he'd go become a hermit or something."

Rey  _really_  didn't want to, but she couldn't help but giggle at the crude but apt description of her teacher. "He forgot to turn the oven on when he tried making chicken parm."

"See," Han said, pointing a fry at her. "Hopeless."

"Mmm, but…I'm grateful."

"Yeah?" He gave her a scrutinizing look, "I've been briefed."

Ah.  _Unkar_.

Neither of them said anything and Rey squirmed in her spot. Either Leia or Luke had been the one to tell Han. Not her. She wasn't sure why, but that made a difference.

"Pile of shit if I've ever met one," Han said, and they both knew who he was referring to. "Had a nice truck though."

Rey's mind did a sudden skid on the track lanes that were her thoughts. Eventually, she latched on to a specific word. "Wait,  _had_?"

The stupid thing had been Unkar's only source of meager pride and little joy that couldn't be found in a bottle. It was a car he'd restored from scratch. It had taken a few months worth of effort and a lot of money that he definitely didn't have before the state funded stipend started coming in. He'd regaled her with the story of how he'd acquired it in a bet, that first night she'd arrived. Back when she still thought her new residence might not be so bad. He'd then told her in no uncertain terms that she was never allowed touch it, unless she wanted to lose a few fingers for the effort.

"Had," Han repeated, and winked. "Got impounded. And then lost. And then found. And then impounded again. And then...well," he smirked, "then it got set on fire."

Rey pinched the bridge of her nose. "Do I even want to know?"

Han chugged a bit of his beer and let it go with an audible sound of appreciation. "Maybe," he said. "Not now, though. Maybe when you're older."

"What's wrong with my age?" She asked hotly.

"Oh?" Han's smirk turned devilish, and Rey was struck once again by just how intense the family resemblance was. "Well, alright then. There we were at the gentleman's lounge, my buddy Lando had given me a tip that the guy was a frequent customer, and Unkar was just slobbering all over the girls there, especially this one with a nicest, biggest pair of-"

By that point Rey had stuck her fingers in her ears. "Lalalala I can't hear you!"

Han roared with laughter, and banged the table once or twice, causing the silverware to clatter, as if joining him.

Rey upturned her nose. She didn't think it was that funny. She just...didn't feel the need to know all the sordid details.

"Kid, you are a riot," Han said once he calmed down. "I'll tell you some other time, alright? Maybe your birthday."

She rolled her eyes.  _Yeah, no._ "How are you even married?"

"Pretty sure Leia asks herself that question practically every day." Han supplied, still grinning. "Must be doing something right, though."

"Maybe you're like...a pet project gone awry?" Rey postulated, scrunching her mouth as she thought of it. "Like, somehow she really hates your guts but you're so thick you can't tell the difference?"

Han snorted and shook his hand in a so-so gesture. "Eh. I give it a 4 for ingenuity and a 2 for execution. Try again, firecracker."

"Don't call me that," her reply came as quick as an arrow.

The man held his hands up in surrender. "Whatever you say, kid."

"But still," Rey said, thinking on what Han had said, "Isn't messing with Unkar...wrong?"

Han's forehead crinkled as her shot her an inquisitive look. "What makes you say that?"

"It's just-" Images of a far more serious Han restraining Ben flashed through her mind. She remembered the tremble in her chest as she observed, the quake in the building as Ben tore through the wall like tissue paper. "-I thought Luke had warned Ben off from doing anything."

"Rightly so, if you ask me." Han sipped a bit at his beer one more time. "Kid spends half his life under the roof of Luke freakin' Skywalker and he still comes out more like his old man than is good for him."

"I don't understand."

He leaned in close. "Luke doesn't trust himself to handle certain things. He doesn't trust Ben either, which isn't a knock against him, believe me. That's what I'm there for."

Rey was still confused. "So, what? Luke  _asked_  you to do that stuff to Plutt?"

Han barked out a laugh, cynical but not harsh. "Luke's never asked me to do a damn thing other than act like a proper husband and a responsible father. No, kid, that stuff was all me."

"But...why?"

"Don't need a reason," Han grunted, looking away, a rare blush gracing his wrinkled face. "Felt like it."

Just like that it dawned on her.

"Liar," Rey countered, and she realized she was smiling. "You did it for me. And for Ben."  _So Ben wouldn't go and do something even more stupid._

Han grunted and shrugged non-committedly.

Oh yeah, she could definitely see the family resemblance.

Just then the diner door opened and the jingling of the bells announced someone's arrival. Rey glanced at her Mickey Mouse watch and then over at the entrance. Poe stood there, looking a little lost.

She waved, grabbing his attention. Poe saw her and his face lit up.

"Heya Rey," he said, walking up to the booth. He wore an orange blazer and loose blue jeans. His aviator style sunglasses hung on his forehead, lending a very chic and fashionable appeal to the whole look. If it weren't for the horrendous looking jacket, she'd almost have called him stylish. Of course, the man looked entirely comfortable in a piece of clothing that belonged to a traffic cone.

Han jumped on the change of subject like a piece of steak. "Ohhh, hey, is this that boy of yours that Maz mentioned last time I was here?"

Rey felt her face flush, but thankfully Poe just laughed.

Then, to her horror, Poe replied, "Nah, if I had to guess, I'd say that'd probably be Solo."

Rey blinked, then coughed loudly a few times in a very obvious (and lame) attempt to disguise what Poe had said, or maybe distract them, or change the subject, or literally anything because God she did not need anyone knowing about her ridiculous crush, especially when the object of said crush wasn't talking to her. Or rather, she wasn't talking to him. Or some combination of the two.

And seriously, how did  _Poe_ , of all people, know about that?

Rey hadn't seen Han be surprised yet, but now he seemed like he might possibly need help picking his jaw off the floor. "Uh, kid," he cleared his throat, "exactly how old are you?"

Rey chuckled nervously, deflecting, "Oh, Poe's kidding!" She smacked Poe's arm playfully, "You goof!" She glared at him while smiling broadly and shoot him a look that hopefully said  _Play along or die_.

Poe's eyes got wide as he laughed nervously, and said (unconvincingly), "Oh, yeah, totally kidding. That's me, always joking around!"

Rey joined him in his awkward laughter, hoping that Han'd buy it.

"Right," Han said awkwardly after a minute. He glanced over at Rey with an eyebrow raised, wearing a bemused expression. "Okay, well I'm gonna get going. Thanks for joining me."

Rey cringed, and nodded, trying her best to avoid meeting Han's eyes. "Have a good night, Han."

"Yeah, you too, kid."

Poe stayed quiet until Han left, the bells jingling behind him. After a minute he turned to Rey, seeming confused. "What was that about? Did I say something wrong?"

Rey thought for a minute about how to answer, and figured there was no point in lying. "Well, that was Ben's dad."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Rey snorted. " _Oh_."

"Sorry," he said bashfully as he sat down across from her, "I didn't mean to out you to his dad like that. If I'd known...I mean, I didn't even know for sure if you liked him, it's just the impres-"

"I know," Rey interrupted, "don't worry about it. Cat's out of the bag," she shrugged. "Either Han will never bring it up again, or he'll tease me about it." She paused and smiled at Maz as the woman placed two large chocolate milkshakes in front of them.

Maz looked down at Poe for a minute, considering him, before breaking the silence. "I like this one. Bring him back sometime."

Rey, being used to Maz's antics, just laughed, but poor Poe looked pretty surprised.

"Uh...thanks?" he said, giving Maz an uncomfortable, but not unfriendly smile.

"Girlie here's never introduced me to her friends. Seems to think I'll corrupt them somehow." She then turned to Rey. "Shift's over by the way. You can take those ridiculous things off your feet."

"Thank god," Rey muttered, and moved to untie her skates, "and you're the one who keeps making me wear them."

Maz sniffed disdainfully. "Should I get my broom?"

"No ma'am," Rey squeaked.

"Thought so."

And then Maz left, having had the last word again, as she often did whenever Rey started talking back.

Poe watched the interaction, keeping quiet the whole time until Maz had left. Then, all of sudden, he grinned.

"So you  _do_  have a heart!" he exclaimed.

Rey felt her eye twitch. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Instead of answering, Poe took an unnecessarily long slurp of his milkshake, obnoxious sound effect and all. Finally, after an egregious amount of time, he stopped, licking his lips like a dog just wetting his lips. He finally noticed her glaring. "What?"

"What was that comment earlier?"

"Oh that?" Poe waved it off and took another quick slurp of his milkshake, "Just debunking a theory of mine."

Rey internally swore. Getting information from Poe was worse than herding cats. "That theory being?"

"That you have absolutely no idea how to talk to people," Poe remarked casually, as if commenting on the weather. "Turns out, you're just really awkward with the folks in the Dojang."

"It's kind of hard to talk to them," she drawled, "considering everyone keeps looking at me like I'm gonna explode."

"Is that what you think?" Poe shook his head, "Man, you really  _do_  have an ego."

"Hey!"

"What? It's true."

"Oh my god, you are insufferable! I'm trying to apologize here, you ass!" Rey shouted. And then clamped a hand over her mouth as she realized what she just said.  _How could she bungle up apology milkshakes?_

Poe tilted his head curiously at her. "Oh is that it? You're cool then."

Rey stopped. And blinked. And stared.

"Just like that?" she asked.

"Yup." More slurping sounds.

"But...why?"

Poe shrugged. "You're not the first person to get annoyed by my charming personality. Probably didn't help that I was kinda' low-key flirting with Solo the whole time too."

 _I knew it_.

"...you're just all kinds of stupid, aren't you?" She couldn't help herself. All the anxiety building up for nothing. She was almost a little disappointed. Almost.

"The word you're looking for is brilliant, actually," Poe said lightly. And then he ran a finger along the rim of his glass. Triple thick chocolate frappe dripped from his digit. He flicked it at her.

Rey jerked back in shock. "Wha- stop that!"

"Nah," Poe grinned, "Payback."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A new name and venomous words.
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> AttackoftheDarkCurses: Don't worry, Ben won't be gone for long. In the meantime - POE! Finally, Rey apologizes, and admits to herself that she doesn't hate Poe. I mean, really, who could hate Poe? He's a good guy, and probably more forgiving than he should be. We'll be seeing more of him.
> 
> I hope you're all enjoying the interactions between Rey and Han as much as I am - thebuildingsnotonfire has been writing most of their conversations and I LOVE them.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: This one is a bit more transitional, but it does address some of the fallout from Rey eavesdropping on something she probably shouldn't have. Also, Poe and Han and Luke, who are just so delightful to write. Ben will show up next chapter, and from there we'll get a hint as to what he's been up to.
> 
> We split this one up because honestly the tone for the first half and the second half just did not mesh well, not to mention we wanted to show that life goes on. Don't worry, AttackoftheDarkCurses has planned everything out, and we'll get to see Ben soon. With a shirt. Without a shirt. Not saying much more than that.
> 
> We're on Tumblr:
> 
> Tumblr links:
> 
> [ AttackoftheDarkCurses](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 
[ thebuildingsnotonfire](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/) 



	18. Held at Red Belt, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one! Thankfully most of the next chapter is already written, so it won't take too long to post.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


Things fell into a groove after the talk with Poe. Rey wasn't sure what Poe did, nor did she ask him to do anything about it in the first place, but she went from being treated like high-octane nitrous by the Dojang to slightly better than a rabid dog. So, still not great, but a marked improvement over what it was like beforehand. At the very least, she no longer cleared the locker room just by entering. The other day, one of the lower belts even smiled at her.

(Ben still wasn't back, though. She'd conjured up a few thousand scenarios as to why. None of them could get rid of the grey taste in her mouth.)

It was Sunday, and they were just finishing up with Rey's one-on-one training. Luke had her doing Taeguk Il Jang all day. Not at normal speed, like a sane person. No. He'd had her do it at an agonizingly slow rate, each full iteration taking a good ten minutes. It was far harder than it had any right to be. She had to maintain full composure the whole time, while moving not so fast as to prompt Master Luke to start over, or slow enough that she fell out of pace with Master Luke.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Master Luke special if the man also hadn't added a little bit of mind-mashing flavor. He had The Proclaimer's  _500 Miles_ going at full volume in the rarely used Dojang speaker for over six hours. From when they started at nine in the morning to now at three in the afternoon. It was fun for the first fifteen minutes. At around the half-hour mark, she'd wanted to jam forks in her ears. At minute forty-seven she realized she desperately wanted to jam those forks into Master Luke's  _face_. Repeatedly. And to make up for it she'd just dunk his head in a tub of hydrogen peroxide.

Every part of her ached with the kind of endless throbbing that started in her immortal soul and stopped somewhere around three inches above her epidermis. Her lungs burned with uncharacteristic and unwholesome cheer as they set about keeping her alive, and somewhere around one o' clock she'd gotten a foot cramp that never seemed to fully gone away. Even just blinking hurt, and despite all the physical exhaustion she felt, Rey vowed to never listen to that stupid song for the rest of her life even if she had to jump out of a moving car to do so.

Master Luke tossed her a fresh towel that he'd set aside. November had come with its usual briskness, all wind chills and too-early Christmas jingles, a smattering of freezing days and a plethora of cloudy ones. The Dojang was toasty and comfortable at least; Master Luke had finally fixed the old heating in the building after a call to one of his former students who'd come over and helped determine why the radiators were leaking instead of working.

Rey wiped her face with the towel, wincing as her hair elastic snagged and she tugged some hairs out accidentally. She started moving for the locker room to get changed but was stopped by Master Luke calling for her.

"Rey, you should sit." He gestured to the spot they'd just moved from, in the center of the room. There was still a little bit of perspiration on the floor where she'd been slowly going through her poomse. "There's something we need to talk about."

Curious, Rey did so, sitting on her knees in the typical seiza posture. Master Luke sat down in front of her, legs crossed instead. He propped his arm on his right knee and stretched to the side, sending audible and probably deeply satisfying cracks up his spine. Rey mimicked his actions, and she had to fight a whimper at the sudden shock of her back cracking in places she didn't know she had.

"Promotion is coming up," he said, breaking the silence.

She blinked, and then did the math. Promotion was around every three months or so, and the last one had been in mid-September.

"How are you feeling about it?" he asked, azure eyes piercing.

She bit her lip. "I don't know….normal?"

"And what is  _normal_  to you?"

Floundering, she stopped her stretches and looked down at the floor. She already had an inkling of what he was talking about. "Anxious."

"Not an answer I'd normally like to hear, but an honest one," Luke commented. He too stopped stretching. "Let me ask you another. Do you think that you deserve to advance?"

Gut, instinct, and reflex all nearly made her blurt out "Yes!" in as loud and confident as a voice as she could fake it. The question wasn't unexpected. Master Luke had not once hinted in the past few weeks that he was considering this, but it was a constant thought in the back of her mind, and never discounted even when he'd congratulate her on a good session of practice. Two months of awkward, once a week trainings did not a stable and controlled person make.

She knew that.

She also knew that Master Luke was seriously asking her opinion on this, and seriously considering the value of her answer.

She could probably say the wrong word and still promote on time.

"No, sir."

The words burned on her tongue as she said them, and she hated that part of her that flushed with shame at the proclamation.

"Do you know why?" he asked gently. He had the tone of a teacher, of someone who knew the answer - knew it, but wanted the class to teach it to him anyways.

"My anger," was her first reply. "My self-control."

Master Luke was watching her reaction, assessing her. The sun was starting to set low outside - the winter days viciously short, and warmth was as rare as him changing his mind.

Twilight was still a while away, but Rey realized that, for Master Luke, it wasn't as far away as it was for her. How many students had he taught in his lifetime? She thought of the HVAC man who'd come earlier in the week. How many of Luke's students had already grown old, like him?

How many had he held back?

"In part. It's not easy," he said, coming to his feet and gesturing for her to do so as well, "-to admit one's faults, Rey."

She stood and did her best not to wobble on her feet. She would have given her left arm just for a chance at a shower and a warm bed right about then. "Has this happened often, sir?"

"Occasionally," he said with a nod. "It happens more than you might think. I'm fairly lenient as far as masters go, but I've held back more than my fair share of students as well."

She hesitated. "How long?"

"As long as it's necessary."

"That seems a bit vague...sir."

"There was nothing vague about when you tried to take my head off two months ago, Rey."

She had the decency to blush at least. "I'm sorry."

Master Luke shook his head and put a hand on her shoulder. "I don't need your apology. I need your dedication. You've been distracted recently, and I'm not going to put the effort in this if you're not meeting me halfway. There's a difference between doing and trying, kid, and right now, I can't tell if you're either."

"I  _am_  trying." If she hadn't been, she would have dropped the training after the first session. Her body was sore in all the wrong ways, and her head always felt like she had a heavy metal band thrumming power chords behind her eyelids afterwards.

"I know you're trying up here," Luke poked her forehead, forcefully nudging Rey's head, before pointing down at her chest, "But you're not trying down  _here_."

"Alright, alright. I get it." She rubbed the spot her poked and scowled. "You're doing that thing again by the way."

Luke blinked, and looked at her askance. "I beg your pardon?"

"That thing. You're talking in circles, and acting all mystical and wise and stuff."

She thought she saw a hint of red in his face before he turned and coughed into his hand. "I-I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Is that a Master thing, or a  _you_  thing?"

"It's not a 'thing'!"

"Sir, I respectfully disag-"

"If you have enough energy to sass your Master, I can think of plenty of other things we can do. How's about twenty burpies sound right now?"

Rey straightened. "I'll be good!"

His grey beard twitched with a suppressed smile. "Thought so."

* * *

Normally, Rey avoided taking shifts on Friday nights after Taekwondo. For about two years, Friday nights had been specifically reserved for sleepovers filled with (deliberately or unintentionally) terrible horror movies and delicious food. To say it had quickly become her favorite day of the week had been an understatement. Plutt hadn't really cared where she spent her nights, but he did get suspicious whenever she was gone for too long. Friday had been the one night he was almost guaranteed to never care since he himself would frequently stumble in around 4AM and pass out on either recliner or in the bathroom tub. Friday had become the start of the best times of her life, in short.

But when your boss calls and says she needs another set of hands she's willing to pay double?

 _Well_.

Rey still felt a bit guilty for ditching Rose and Finn, but they understood, and she took comfort in knowing they were still hanging out with each other even if she couldn't make it.

But she'd recently snagged a peek at the number on the bottom of the grocery bill and...yikes.

It wasn't like Luke had mentioned anything. He hadn't even hinted at anything resembling bills. And Rey was starting to realize that he might never, which just didn't sit well with her malnourished sense of responsibility. She had suddenly become very aware that her food, her clothing, even her suddenly produced insurance forms for the Dojang, were costing Master Luke a  _lot_ of money.

It was absolutely frigid for mid-November, and despite the heating in the diner, Rey was freezing. She'd woken up in chills that morning (apparently the HVAC was on the fritz again, after barely a week of functioning heat) and she'd left the apartment in anew jackets that Master Luke had gotten for her. He had been displeased to note the state of her previous winter-wear - she knew, because he'd gotten quiet and his jaw did that clenching thing he did whenever something truly tested his patience. Even so, the air had laughed at her preparation and all but shredded her face with the sharp knives in its winds and gusts.

She tugged the sweater over her uniform - this time of year, the uniform consisted of the same style button up-shirt (though now she'd swapped to flannel) tied in the front, and skinny-style, full-length pin up pants in lieu of her usual shorts. It was still cute, and much warmer.

At least, that's what she was trying to tell herself.

The tables were finally starting to empty out, which was a relief, because the diner usually closed by 10 PM, and it was just a few minutes to. There were always a few stragglers, but Rey started washing down tables and cashing out...until she noticed a prepped to-go order in the kitchen window.

"Maz," she called out, "what's this order? Did someone forget to pick-up?"

"Nope, it's delivery," the woman answered from the kitchen. She was dancing jauntily to some bagpipe-y and accordion jingle that was coming from a battery radio. The other two line cooks had already clocked out, and the only other person was the other waitress who had drawn the short end of the straw and was on mop duty for the night.

Rey frowned. "Maz, we don't do delivery."

The tiny woman let out a perfectly timed "Opa!" in line with some lyrics in the song, and started shaking her butt side to side like a demented pendulum. Her voice was loud, but knowing. "For this one, we do. Actually,  _you_  do."

"Me?" Rey laughed. "It's funny, you know, I don't  _remember_ getting a car or learning how to drive."

"It's walking distance, smartass." Maz shot her a  _look_.

"Oh."

She looked down at the bag and inspected the address to see if Maz was right.

"Maz, who's-" she squinted at the sloppy handwriting. Maz often wrote like a chimpanzee on speed, "-Keelo Ren? And why is he important enough to make us deliver?" She noted the miserable-looking customers going out into the cold, "Especially in this weather. And what the hell kind of name is  _Keelo Ren?_ "

The old troll guffawed. "It's pronounced Kylo, girlie. But I'll keep that one in mind for whenever he gets uppity."

"That...still doesn't answer my question."

She was still chuckling. "Honestly the things you kids do nowadays. Calling himself that ridiculous name." She shook her head. "Just deliver it, Rey."

Rey huffed. "Okay, okay. Need any more help closing up?"

"Nope! Now get going before it gets cold. More than ten minutes and he gets a free meal!"

Rey blanched and then sighed. She pulled on the heavy white jacket Luke had insisted on, and tried not to feel guilty about how comfortable it felt on her shoulders. She took another look at the address and noticed that it seemed familiar, and if she wasn't mistaken, it was just down the street.

Except...

Rey racked her brain, trying to figure out why it was so familiar, and when she looked at the order, it finally hit her.

"Maz, this is Ben's usual order. And...I think this is his building. And apartment. "

"Might be."

"I…" Rey faltered for a moment as several choice words for her boss came to mind. "Maz, I can't deliver this."

The woman finally came out of the kitchen, her hands on her hips. "Why?"

"You know why," Rey mumbled. "He's  _got_  to be mad at me. And besides...Maz, he was kind of scary. I know he wouldn't hurt me but I'm not sure I could handle seeing him like that again. Especially…" she sighed, "especially if I'm the one he's mad at."

"My, aren't you arrogant." Maz shook her head, and then peered at her, no longer shimmying to her radio. "Do you see him differently now?"

She could still hear Ben's bestial and abhorrent roar, if she tried hard enough. Rey swallowed and shrugged helplessly. "I'm not sure. I'd never seen him that angry before."

Maz nodded. "I've known that boy since he was...well, a boy. He can be very protective. I have no doubt he would kill a person if they hurt someone he loves. But whenever you two came in here you looked at him like you thought he was the damn moon." The woman paused, before asking, "Do you still?"

Rey was, for some reason, surprised by her bluntness, but after a moment she nodded.

"Then do your job and deliver the food, girlie."

* * *

It was really cold.

It was really really cold.

It was sticking-her-head-in-an-icebox-would-be-warmer-than-this level of cold.

Rey could feel the bitter air fill her lungs and burn her from the inside out, each inhale almost painful with how really really fucking cold it was. Damn that Maz, and damn that stupid Kylo Ren - Ben's new roommate? Or maybe... _boyfriend?_  - for not coming down himself. The road's were clear, and the only lights on were the various street lamps and the electronic bank sign denoting the temperature.

(The fact that the number started with a 1 said all that needed to said of the state of Rey's thoughts).

The trip was only five minutes, but by the time she got there after half-running half-power walking, she was out of breath. Her legs burned with cold and ache, a sucky feeling heretofore never experienced and not one she wished to repeat. Her brain kept sending signals of  _Abort! Abort!_  but it was like someone else had taken the reins. She found herself standing in front of Ben's building, wondering how she'd gotten up the nerve to even get this far.

She gathered together whatever of that nerve she had left and sighed, then pressed the buzzer for apartment nine. Part of her hoped nobody would answer, and another part was desperate to see this new (and strangely named) person in Ben's life. Were they nice? Tall? The same age? Attractive?

(Oh, what if Ben found Kylo Ren attractive?)

The buzzer interrupted her mile-a-minute thoughts and Rey had to force herself to take a deep breath, because  _she was not ready for this!_

The stairs were miserable, but at least she wasn't carrying boxes of books this time. Rey made it to the landing and was debating turning back when the apartment door opened, revealing a rather confused and disheveled Ben.

Dark gray sweatpants hung from his hips. Drops of water fell from wet, messy, dark hair as if he'd just stepped out of the shower, and since the world was clearly out to completely mess with Rey's head, he wasn't wearing a shirt.

_Ben Solo was not wearing a shirt and it was literally the best thing ever._

Rey just couldn't stop herself. Her eyes flicked down before coming back up to meet his, and she swallowed hard.

Abs. So many abs.  _Oh God why._

"Uh, hey, Rey. Since when does Maz offer deliveries?" he asked, leaning against the door frame.

Rey didn't answer. She was too busy trying to forget that he had a six-pack or eight-pack or whatever people called those muscles, and she was desperately trying to ignore the voice in the back of her head suggesting that she could simply reach out and-

Internally, she was starting to panic. Just a bit. She wasn't sure how long she'd been standing there and she had to say something eventually or things would get really, really awkward. If they weren't already, that is.

"Do...do you have a shirt or something that you could put on?"

_Pleasesaynopleasesaynopleasesayno._

Ben looked even more confused after that.

 _This is bullshit._  It was taking all her will to not gawk.  _This is utter bullshit. Maz, I don't know whether to strangle you or kiss you_.

Rey knew it wasn't Maz's fault. The woman would likely never have sent her there if she'd known  _this_  was how Ben now answered doors. (Not that she was complaining. She was definitely not complaining).

"Uh. Yeah…" he cleared his throat, and opened the door further. "Come on in, I'll be right back."

She followed him into the apartment and did her best not to watch as he went into what she assumed was his bedroom. He came back a few minutes later wearing a tight black t-shirt that really didn't do much to hide all the muscle that Rey now knew existed.

 _Shit_  she needed to get herself together. At least he didn't seem mad at her.

"So, you never answered my question," he pointed out, crossing his arms. He took a seat at the dining room table and gestured for her to join him. "Since when does the diner deliver?"

"Since tonight, apparently," Rey tore herself away and looked at the wall. She was suddenly very glad her face was already red from the cold. "Why, were you going to pick this up?"

"That was the plan. I was about to head out when you rang the buzzer."

She swiveled back to look at him, gaze steady. "You were going to show up at the diner without a shirt?"

"Well, no," he said, cheeks turning a bit pink. "I would have put on a jacket or something." He rolled his eyes and smirked, "Are you going to give me my order or what?"

Starting to feel a bit more comfortable, Rey shook her head, teasing right back. "I'm not, actually, because this isn't your order.  _This_  is for Kylo Ren. Did you get a roommate or something?"

The playful smile on Ben's face fell. "Uh, no. Maybe we should talk about that. Later."

 _Later_  had been three weeks after he left and came back from some trip or whatever without telling her. She wanted to press the issue but the look on his face told her to drop it. She didn't want to sour whatever providence had granted this chance to speak with Ben after so long.

"Okay...sure."

She handed him the bag and sat down opposite of him. Ben went into the kitchen to grab a plate (it was an orange plastic and had knife marks on it from previous use). He fiddled with the drawer where his utensils were, finally opening it after a quick jerk to the handle. The whole scenario felt...bizarre. Like she'd looked behind the movie screen and found a room where everything in the movie was actually happening, but with real three dimensional people.

And Rey knew why.

Ben didn't know she'd been there that night.

She watched him take two styrofoam containers out from the bag.

"Huh, looks like Maz sent dinner for you, too. Hungry?"

 _Of course she did, that tricky, nosy, pain-in-the-ass_ …

"Rey?" Ben startled her out of the long winded bitch-fest she was about to start on in her head, and after a moment she nodded.

"Yeah, sure,' she said grumpily, a split second before noticing the hopeful look on his face. The look that fell as soon as he heard the tone of her voice. Rey studied him for a moment, still a little confused by his reaction. It seemed like he  _wanted_  her to stick around for dinner, but that didn't make much sense. Maybe Luke had been right?

Testing her theory, Rey smiled at him, and joked, "You gonna eat my fries or will I actually get to have some this time?"

He paused for a minute before smiling, seeming relieved. "Eh," he shrugged, "maybe we can split them."

Rey nodded. "Okay, fine, I'll stay. But if I'm not home by 11, Luke will start looking for me."

His mischievous smirk made a quick appearance as he chuckled, "A curfew? That must be taking some getting used to."

"It's…" she took a deep breath, and smiled broadly. "It's great, actually."

"Huh," he frowned. "Well, that's good."

They kept quiet as they each unwrapped their various burgers, and neither of them commented on the fact that the burgers were lukewarm at best. By the time Rey had taken her first soggy bite into her veggie burger, she realized that she was ravenous, having skipped her dinner to help Maz earlier.

It took Ben about five minutes before he finally reached over and started grabbing her fries, prompting that tiny bit of her heart that was tense and maybe even a little afraid to loosen up.

Rey met his eyes and grinned.

"I missed this," she said, in between bites, "it's...been a while."

Ben had the good grace to wince and look ashamed. "Uhh yeah, it's been kind of crazy. I missed this too."

She knew better. She knew better and asked her next question anyway. "How was your trip?"

He looked away, eyes on his food. "It was...enlightening."

"Mmmm," she said, not really caring about his answer, "Where'd you go?"  _Why'd you leave?_

Ben shrugged. "A place out in the mountains. It's about a four hour drive from here. Me and some guys I knew invited me."

Cagey. Evasive. Rey's curiosity was piqued. "Anyone I know?"

"Unlikely."

Rey stared at him. Her burger finished. Ben had stopped grabbing her fries.

"When'd you come back?" she asked.

"About a month ago," he said, and then winced, as if knowing what he'd done wrong, "I've been caught up with a lot of stuff. Met some new people who wanted to work with me on some things. I've been meaning to pass by, it's just been a lot all at once."

Stuff. Things. Rey was no detective but Ben was being about as descriptive as a brain dead slug.

Neither of them finished her fries.

"Hey Ben?" she asked quietly, "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, of course," he answered casually, clearly not understanding the weight and nervousness to her words.

"You just...you don't seem mad. At me, I mean."

He looked over at her curiously. "That's not a question. But, why would I be mad?"

Rey pushed her food container aside and started inspecting her fingers, "I'm the reason you left. I thought you might blame me."

"Rey, you're not the reason I left," he said after a minute. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his face, jaw clenched and something hurting behind it. "You aren't, I promise. I'm not sure what Luke told you about me leaving, but it wasn't your fault."

 _Right._ It continuously astounded Rey how much knowledge of that night changed her perspective. Neither Ben nor Luke knew and if she had her way, they would never find out.

"He just said you disagreed on how to handle Plutt."

Ben worked his lips together, and nodded. "That's one way to put it, I guess. But that's not your fault. Luke and I...we just don't see eye to eye."

"That's what he said," Rey explained. "But if you aren't mad at me…" she shook her head, "I just don't understand why you haven't come back. You've been gone for almost two months - isn't that long enough?"

Suddenly, Ben couldn't meet her eyes, and Rey felt her stomach drop. That mysterious trip, again?

"I'm not coming back, kid," he said slowly, still making eye contact with the table in front of him. "I uh...I have a new job."

"A new job?" She heard herself ask. Rey wasn't sure which part of her brain was responsible for actually speaking, because the rest of it was torn between being frozen and basically screaming.

"Yeah," he said quietly. Finally, he looked back up at her. "It's at First Order MMA, next town over, in Mandalore. The guy who owns the place offered me a job when he heard I was looking for something." He smiled awkwardly at her and Rey was struck by the resemblance between him and Luke in the expression. "He's a grandmaster as well. Seventh dan, so I know he's the real deal, and not some quack running a McDojo."

The term flew over her head, but Rey got the message. The man was good.

"Everyone else at the gym is trained in other Martial Arts, but they've been missing a full-time Taekwondo instructor. The owner can't spare enough time to teach everyone and this way I can still practice without losing my edge."

"But...you're not a master." The notion of teaching without being recognized as such seemed antithesis to Rey. "How can you teach?"

"He's seen me spar," Ben explained. "You know those tournaments we go to? Yeah, he's been sending scouts around for a while now, trying to find someone he could trust to take care. He seemed impressed with what I had to show him. Said I was more than good enough to teach."

Too fast. This was happening way too fast.

"He sounds like an interesting guy." Rey said, because she needed to find out more and if she paid too much heed to her thoughts she was liable to short-circuit.

Ben grinned sheepishly, his voice proud as he said, "He is." Then he bit his lip and looked her in the eye. "He stopped me from doing something really stupid. I figured I owe him one for it, and I needed a job, so it worked out."

 _Han stopped you from doing something stupid. Luke stopped you from doing something stupid. Maybe you just shouldn't have_  been  _stupid to begin with!_  She wanted to scream but seeing Ben smile as he talked about never coming back...

That's right, he was still talking. "Phasma works there too. She's been recruiting them for years, but I think she's glad she doesn't have to spread the workload as much either."

"Phasma." Rey's blood ran cold.

"It's been going well," he said, clearly oblivious to the fact that Rey was currently freaking out over the mention of a particularly difficult, pretty blonde who was actually a frustratingly appropriate age for Ben. "She's fun to work with, so we've been hanging out more, and Snoke...well, I really wouldn't use the word  _fun_. Training's been...challenging, but he offered to promote me to Master when I'm ready, if I train with him and help teach."

"Luke would have done that too," Rey said softly, doing her best to forget her current thoughts that mostly concerned Phasma.

Ben's voice was bitter as he said, "I'm not so sure about that."

"Of course he would have," she said quietly.

"Drop it, Rey," he said firmly, more loudly than was necessary. "I'm not going back," he snapped. "You're going to have to accept it."

Rey kept her head bowed, unable to look at him for the blood rushing in her ears. Her hands were in her lap, fingers clenched so tightly it hurt. She welcomed the feeling like an old friend, and was grateful he couldn't see her hands from this angle. "I get it now," she started, her voice hoarse and empty and hurting. "You  _left_."

"Rey-"

"I should have known," she hissed, jumping to her feet and knocking the chair aside. She immediately started walking towards the door. "Everyone leaves. I thought you'd be different. I thought you'd at least come back. Or say  _something_. I should have known better. You're just like everybody else."

The words felt like venom in her mouth, and when she looked back at Ben, she realized they'd probably felt like that to him, too. His eyes were wide, and the look on his face was nothing but confusion and hurt. He almost looked like he was lost.

Rey knew she had to leave before she said anything else she'd regret.

So that's what she did. She didn't give him a chance to respond before she left, slamming his apartment door behind her.

* * *

Miraculously, she made it home before the tears started. She'd thought they'd frozen to her face before they came, just as she unlocked the door to the apartment she now shared with Luke. She held it together just long enough to pull the door open, and step inside. She leaned her back against the door and sighed, wiping tears from her eyes.

"Are you alright?" a voice demanded.

When Rey looked up, she realized Luke had been reading on the couch, waiting for her to get home. His landline, a light blue monstrosity from the 90's that had a chord that could stretch across the room, was in his lap, him having picked it up off the table next to the couch. A quick look at the clock on the wall indicated that it was well past curfew.

"Rey, what's going on?" Luke repeated.

"He's not coming back," she answered, her voice small, and sad.

Realization dawned on his face. "You saw Ben?"

"Maz had me bring him his order," she explained. "She packed me dinner too, so I stayed for a while and we talked."

Luke seemed concerned. "What'd he say to upset you?"

"He didn't mean to upset me. I just…" she sniffled, "I guess I thought he'd come back. But he has a new job, and when I told him he should come back he got kind of mad, and then I said some things, and…"

She shrugged, and plopped down on the couch next to Luke. "I just thought he'd come back at some point."

Luke made a motion to put an arm around her, pulled it back, cleared his throat, and nodded. "I understand, kid. But you know, you don't have to stop being friends with him just because you aren't in Taekwondo together."

"Yeah, but," Rey sighed, "Luke, I said some awful things. Besides, he's probably going to be so busy, between training and-"

"Training?" Luke interrupted, his voice suddenly urgent. "He's training?"

Rey blinked, "Uh, yeah, he said his boss is training him, and that he could get his fourth dan there in a few years. It's an MMA place, I think, but Ben said the guy who runs it is trained in Taekwondo."

Luke closed his eyes and, for a second, looked briefly pained by her words. When he opened them, his expression had turned grim. "It's Snoke, isn't it?" he asked. "Rey, I need to know," he said, more urgently, "is he training under Alistair Snoke?"

"I think that was his name," she said, looking at Luke curiously. "It was something like that."

Luke's eyes grew haunted. It was like a lot of his vigor was gone with that sentence alone. He leaned back, crossed his arms, and Rey heard him go through some breathing exercises to calm himself down.

His reaction, more than anything else, disturbed Rey. She felt like some discordant notes were echoing in her head and her life. She wanted it gone. Give her Ben back, give her Luke as he was before she got home, and give her a hole in the ground.

Let Snoke go rot in a ditch.

"Be careful, Rey," Luke said after a few minutes. His voice was gravel hard and his tone warning. "I know you're upset with him right now, but if you make up with Ben and spend any time with him...just trust your instincts. Snoke and the people he trains can't be trusted."

Rey's eyebrows furrowed. "Are you including Ben in that?" she accused.

Luke swallowed hard, before saying words that he struggled to get out, and just for a moment, she thought she saw him flinch.

"I don't know, kid."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A bitching session, some bonding, a stripe, and a new book. 
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> AttackoftheDC: (chanting) Plot! Plot! Plot! Plot!
> 
> Oh, were you here for smut? We'll get there, we will. Someday. Rey's still 16, though, and I'm absolutely not here for writing that - I'm really not. Thanks for understanding because some readers really don't. If you want to read underage fics, you should probably look elsewhere because it's not my thing. And I know, 16 is legal in some places, but YIKES these two are absolutely not in a place where that's even a little appropriate. Basically, it's not happening any time soon and I'm not sorry about that.
> 
> So anyway, SNOKE! Mind the tags, Snoke sucks. That's canon and I'm not changing it. I can't promise he'll get cut in half (though that would be pretty interesting to work in) but I can promise that he's an awful being in this universe too.
> 
> Also, whenever I feel a bit of writer's block I start working on future chapters, and I've written a good portion of chapters 19-21, and 35-37. There's a ton of good stuff in between, of course, but I'm just so excited to post these chapters!
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: So yeah, Rey's getting held at Red belt. From a real life perspective, she probably shouldn't be practicing martial arts at the level she is anyways, especially considering the homelife she came from, and the fact that she's used unnecessary force on her Dojangmates multiple times now.
> 
> I should preface this now. This fic does not discourage a person from practicing any sort of martial arts, and in no way am I saying that one is superior to the others. Many styles have advantages and disadvantages. MMA is the incorporation of several techniques and styles for another form of competition, and though the villain (let's be honest, it's Snoke, he's a villain) owns and manages an MMA gym, that is not to say that MMA is inherently bad. A great many innovations and techniques have become more widespread with the inception and acceptance of MMA into the public eye, and as always, and with any group, it comes down to individuals who are defined as good or bad.
> 
> If MMA gyms are where you wish to go, then that is perfectly fine.
> 
> I should also add here that no one is perfect, and to never take one person's word as gospel. If people are curious about martial arts, I highly encourage them to do some of their own research. The best opinion is that born between your ears.
> 
> Some terms that came up:
> 
> Seiza - A traditional form of sitting on one's knees, originating in Japan. Many schools and styles have adopted the seiza position into their teachings, regardless of origin, since the benefits and challenges of sitting in that position can be integrated into the lessons of many martial arts.
> 
> McDojo - A disparaging term, that refers to a martial arts school or business that treats its lessons and students as a fast food restaurant, churning out as many lackluster black belts in as fast a time as possible. The goal in these things is to have someone pay a lot of money for a certain amount of months, half-ass their training, and churning out a black belt in a year, sometimes less. This is both dangerous, since often the student leaves, thinking they're masters of martial arts and may lead to problems should they attempt to use their 'skills', and dishonest, since it is one giant scam.
> 
> [ AttackoftheDarkCurses Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 
[ thebuildingsnotonfire Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/) 



	19. Red Belt/Black Stripe, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty important announcement - thebuildingsnotonfire and I are leaving for a lovely European honeymoon (!) on 6/21 and we won't be back in the country until 7/6. That being said, we don't want to do any sort of hiatus, especially considering the chapters we have coming up.
> 
> To avoid the whole "hiatus" thing, we're going to be on a limited posting schedule until we get back to the states. After this update, our planned dates for posting are: 6/16, 6/19, 6/23. 6/28, and 7/5. It's less frequently than we'd like, but it's because I'm working on prewriting the next 6-7 chapters so we won't be feeling pressured to write over our honeymoon. Of course, these dates are subject to change, but that's what we have planned at the moment and I wanted to be upfront with all of you.
> 
> Once we return on 7/6, we should have no problem resuming our normal posting speed. We're both really sorry for the inconvenience, but we figured it'd be better than a hiatus.
> 
> I've been writing chapters 21-22 and I've got to say, we have some good stuff coming up. Well, maybe not good. Intense stuff. Good and bad. I'm super excited to share this story with all of you, and I think my wonderful coauthor would say the same.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


" _Snoke and the people he trains can't be trusted."_

" _Are you including Ben in that?"_

" _I don't know, kid."_

Three months later with no contact from Ben and the words still didn't sit right with her.

Not trust Ben? In what world could she not trust  _Ben?_ It was unfathomable. Sure, maybe Rey was pretty ticked off with him and the whole "Phasma got me a new job and I'm not coming back so get over it" thing-

(Seriously,  _fuck_  Phasma)

-but that didn't mean Rey didn't trust him implicitly. It just meant that he was a jerk with worse tact than a cactus with rabies - something which she'd known for a while.

But...it had been three(ish) months and she hadn't heard a peep from him. He hadn't shown up at the diner, the December promotion (an awkward, awkward affair when Master Luke noticeably did  _not_ present her with a new stripe for her belt), the Christmas dinner she'd shared with Luke, Leia, and Han, or...anything. Part of her had been convinced he'd stroll into Maz's a few days after she'd stormed out with an apology and a promise that he was coming back with no intention of leaving again.

All she'd gotten for her patience were swollen ankles and a sore neck after whipping around multiple times whenever the entrance chimes jingled.

No such luck.

She sighed deeply, and at some point the sigh turned into a pitiful whine as she rolled over and buried her head in one of the dozen or so excessively fluffy pillows on her bed. There was enough down and plush to supply a low-grade mattress store, and Rey had no idea what to do with most of it. Luke may have given up on the idea of getting her what he considered a "proper bed" but apparently he'd decided to get her enough pillows to build the sort of pillow fort Rose seemed inclined toward.

Rey snorted at the thought, and wondered if Rose would comment on the over abundance of pillows during their sleepover. Finn was leaving with his gran to visit relatives over February vacation, and rather than cancel their usual Friday night plans, Luke was letting Rey host. She was pleasantly surprised when he'd suggested it, and even more heartwarmingly, he was all prepared for it. It wasn't until that evening, nearly a dozen hours away, but he'd made plans to be out for the night (though he'd been weirdly enigmatic when probed), and he'd gotten all of Rey's favorite snacks and made sure to give her cash for the girls' dinner even though Rey argued that she could pay.

The phone on Rey's bedside table vibrated, and it was so close to the edge the vibration resulted in it landing on the floor. Rey winced at the sound of her new phone hitting the hardwood, and, not for the first time, silently thanked Luke for insisting that she buy the case and screen cover for it.

(Though she had no intention of telling him how right he'd been.)

Finally lifting her head from the massive pile of fluffy, warm, cozy pillows (seriously, why did she even bother getting out of bed anymore?), Rey swung an arm off the bed lazily, reaching just far enough to pick up the still-vibrating phone.

She glanced at the screen and pressed a button, greeting groggily, "Hey Luke."

"Hey kid," he said warmly, "you aren't still sleeping, right?"

"Well, I'm not talking in my sleep, am I?"

"Uh-huh," he chuckled, "but you haven't gotten up yet, have you?"

"Define  _up_."

Talking with Luke had become infinitely easier once Rey learned the man was a saint when it came to snark. According to him, she had nothing on Ben, who, when still living with Luke, had once gone a week angry-texting instead of talking. Actual communication was a godsend after that.

"Well kid, I believe Webster's dictionary defines the word-"

Trust the man to go with the lamest retort available. Rey groaned. "Nevermind, nevermind, I'm awake."

She heard him laugh on the other end. "Good, because it's almost ten o'clock. Doesn't your shift start soon?"

If she wasn't awake before, she definitely was now. "Wait, shit, seriously?"

"Language," he scolded, "but yes, it's almost time. I wasn't sure if you'd remember to set your alarm during school vacation and since you don't normally have morning shifts during the week I thought I'd call."

"Shit!" Rey put the phone on speaker and leapt out of bed to find her uniform, "Luke, you're the best. Maz would have killed me."

"Kid," he warned, "we're going to have a talk about your language eventually."

"Sure, sure," she said quickly, pulling on the pin-up pants, and taking a quick look in the mirror. She winced at the state of her hair, and settled for brushing it back into a ponytail, swallowing the litany of swears on the tip of her tongue whenever she pulled more than a few hairs out in her fervor. "Thanks Luke, I've got to go!"

What sounded like a very loud, very obvious sigh came from the phone, and then Luke's voice came on and said, "Anytime, kid. I'll see you at training, okay?"

Rey paused for a moment, forgetting her mad dash, and smiled in the direction of her phone. "Sounds good. Thanks again. I really appreciate it."

"No problem," he replied. Rey could have sworn she heard his smile.

* * *

Practice that evening wrapped up before 7PM, and in an attempt to avoid Luke's impending lecture on her swearing that morning, Rey avoided him and skipped over to where Poe was stretching out before changing out of his dobok.

"Hey Poe, what's up?"

He gave her a friendly smile, and shrugged. "Not much, you?"

True to his word, and much to her relief, Poe had forgiven her quickly. Actually, he had basically acted as though there was nothing to forgive, which had driven that spike of guilt down her gut even further. Since, she'd decided to try and be friends with him, and it was shockingly easy. It turned out, when she wasn't busy trying to convince herself that she hated him, he was a really nice guy. A bit arrogant in some ways, but almost funnily so, as if he were some action movie hero stuck in a Monty Python movie.

"Not a lot. I'm having my friend Rose sleep over tonight."

Poe barked out a laugh (though why that was so funny, she had no idea), "Let me guess, rom coms and ice cream?"

"What? No!" Rey rolled her eyes. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we usually go for bad horror movies and pizza."

"Huh. That sounds awesome."

Rey paused, and a brilliant idea leapt to the forefront of her mind. "Yeah, it is, and you should join us! Rose wouldn't mind."

He looked nonplussed for a moment, before shrugging. ""Well, I didn't have plans tonight. I have a shift at the library in the morning, though, so I could probably only stay for one movie." He furrowed his brow. "Are you sure you don't mind?"

"Definitely not," she smiled. "I'm heading upstairs to shower, so I'll leave the door unlocked. Just come on up when you've changed and we can order a pizza. Rose'll probably be there in ten minutes or so."

"Alright Kenobi," he nodded, "sounds good."

A stray thought struck her then. "How do you feel about Hawaiian?"

"Pineapple on pizza?" He kissed his fingers like an Italian chef, "If you were a dude I'd ask you to marry me."

He gave her another smile and walked off toward the changing rooms. Rey sighed, a bit relieved that she was making progress, repairing their previously non-existent friendship. She didn't even notice that Luke had walked up behind her until he cleared his throat, and said quietly, "Did you just invite a  _boy_  - a  _college boy_  - to your sleepover without asking my permission?"

Rey's eyes went wide and she spun, ready to apologize. Surprisingly, Luke was smiling widely.

"I'm kidding, kid. Relax. I know you're just friends. And," he added softly, "I'm proud of you. I'm glad to see that you're making an effort to be nice to Poe."

"Oh," Rey said, relieved. She's thought she was in trouble for a moment there. "So, you don't mind? He's not staying over - he has to work in the morning. He's just staying for a movie."

"I don't mind," Luke said. "I trust you…" he hesitated, "Well, actually, I mostly trust you, but I  _definitely_  trust Mr. Dameron and Miss Tico."

"Hey!"

"Relax," he laughed, "I'm just teasing."

Rey shook her head and rolled her eyes at him. She did a quick look around and saw most everyone had already left for the night. "You're awful."

" _You're awful_ , what?"

She tilted her head, and giggled when she realized what he was asking.

"You're awful,  _sir._ "

"That's better," he said, ruffling her hair. "Now go shower. You smell."

* * *

The movie's volume had been turned low after the first hour, when the three of them couldn't stop laughing over damn near everything the Brody character kept saying, as he seemed like the only one in the story who had a sane head on his shoulders. Instead of pizza, Rey had decided to run across the street and pick up several burgers from Maz's, hoping to corrupt more of her friends over to the dark side that was the woman's cooking. (Seriously, they tasted too delicious to be anything but creations of evil.)

"Man, I knew he was old-school, but you're telling me Master Luke  _just_  got a tv?" Poe shook his head in wonder.

"Well," Rose glanced at the old tube tv now sitting on the comparatively tiny table in the living room, "I actually think he owned this beforehand. He just never tossed it."

"I like it," Rey pitched in, feeling the need to defend her absent guardian, "I mean, don't got me wrong, the color's a little off, and it smells like a musty dobak on a muggy day, but it makes the place a little cozier, don't you think?"

All three of them evaluated the hundred-pound monstrosity, now showing a great white monstrosity of its own, except the screen was tinted green, and there definitely was a smell - a pungent, almost living thing that dragged people by the nose as if to say, "Look ma! Fermentation!" The table it was on creaked several horror movies' worth of creepy creaks when they placed the device on it earlier, and now just looked sullen and sunken.

"Sure?" Rose offered.

"Rey, I mean this in the best way possible, but you're crazy." And there was Poe, blunter than a sledgehammer.

Rey sniffed. "You two have no taste."

Rose and Poe exchanged a glance and the two of them started laughing. Rey was well aware of the burning in her cheeks, but she stoutly refused to look away.

"A-Are you pouting?" Rose asked, and that just prompted another fit as she and Poe's laughs redoubled.

"Shut up," she muttered sullenly.

"She is!" Poe said gleefully, practically rubbing his hands together like a villain, "Oh my god, you're pouting! This is adorable."

"I regret ever talking to you."

"No one ever regrets talking to Poe Dameron," he shot back, fake posing because apparently they weren't even bothering with pretense of watching the movie (someone on the screen was dying.  _How drab_  her cynical cinema-side added) "Poe Dameron is the best. Everyone loves Poe Dameron."

"Poe Dameron is going to taste my fist if Poe Dameron doesn't shut his trap." Rey's voice was drier than the Sahara.

"Poe Dameron thinks Poe Dameron's friend is jesting."

"Does Poe Dameron want to find out?" she challenged, holding a fist out.

"Stop!" Rose interrupted, stupid silly grin on her face, "...ok, which one of you is Poe Dameron again?"

Rey threw a pillow at her.

* * *

When Sunday morning rolled around, Rey beat Luke to the shower and listened to him gripe about how she'd use all the hot water.

(She never did. He just liked to complain.)

She came back out a mere fifteen minutes later, wrapped in a fluffy blue bathrobe, and shot him a broad, innocent look that had stopped working one month into her stay before shuffling off to her bedroom to change.

"Kid," Rey heard him call, "what's with all the bottles of stuff in the bathroom? What's this all for, anyway?" he grumbled. "Shampoo, and body wash. That's two bottles. Why are there five in here?"

"You sound like a grumpy old man!"

"I  _am_  a grumpy old man," he yelled back. "Kid, you've got more hair products in here than Ben used to. Trust me, that's saying something."

Rey went quiet at the mention of Ben, and before Luke noticed, she just gave a short laugh, and fired back a "Sorry!"

She closed the door to her room and allowed herself approximately thirty seconds of frowning and sadness before sucking it up and dressing for work. She'd been doing a lot of that lately - sucking it up, and moving forward.

Thirty minutes later, she sat across from Luke at their usual booth, laughing at some silly dad-level joke he'd made over plates of pancakes. They'd both gone for chocolate this time. Rey's whole body felt warm in a way that had little to do with the temperature. She still had to occasionally resist the urge to pull down the sleeves of her hoodie, but she no longer felt awkward laughing openly in public with him.

"So, I didn't get a chance to ask yesterday, but how was the sleepover?"

Rey looked up from her plate, smiling widely. "Really fun. Rose brought  _Jaws_. I guess it was supposed to be a horror movie, but it was kind of silly."

Luke groaned, "Jaws was  _horrifying_  when it came out. I knew a lot of people who didn't dare to go in the water for months after seeing that movie."

Rey just smirked. "Huh. You're old."

"Watch it, kid," he replied, the twinkle in his eyes giving away his amusement. "So, you had fun? Poe and Rose get along okay?"

"Yeah, definitely," she nodded. "It was too bad neither of them could stay longer, though. I thought Rose was going to spend the night, but she had to get home earlier."

"Oh?" His head tilted questioningly, "Why?"

And  _this_  is where she'd been trying to steer the conversation. "Her sister wanted her home early because Rose is learning how to drive, and Paige only had time to take her driving early yesterday morning before her shift started."

"Learning how to drive?" Luke nodded, "Poor Paige. I did that with Ben..." his face turned haunted, as if remembering a traumatic event. He swallowed, and then shook his head, saying ruefully, "Never again."

Rey's stomach dropped. "Oh. I was kind of hoping…"

"Not a chance," Luke said quickly, and unless she was imagining it, he looked pretty nervous. Ben must have been a truly terrible driver when he was learning. "But…" he continued hesitantly, "I'm sure we could get someone to teach you. Ben's out of the question for a  _lot_  of reasons. Mostly because I'd rather not receive any more angry letters about replacing vanity mailboxes." Luke shook his head, as if trying to forget a particularly bad memory. "That boy's always been one to shoot too far rather than take it slow, like he should with a beginner. Maybe Leia. Or Han, if the man hasn't wrapped the Falcon around a tree yet. I can at least trust him not to be reckless with a new driver for a few hours."

Rey perked up a bit. Really, she just wanted to learn how to drive. She'd thought of Luke first, mostly because he'd already taught her so much, but Han or Leia seemed like good options too. "Do you think they'd mind?"

"I don't think so," he smiled. "I'll give them a call, okay?"

"Okay," she nodded. "Thanks, Luke."

"No problem, kid."

* * *

By the time lunch rolled around, Rey was thoroughly (and accidentally) entertaining customers with her wholehearted attempts to air guitar along to the song playing on the jukebox. During her first few weeks at the diner she'd tried asking Maz why a 50s diner had a jukebox featuring classic rock from the 70s and 80s, but the woman just kept waving her off, and eventually Rey gave up asking and just enjoyed the music.

After a few songs, she started  _really_  enjoying the music.

Rey had never listened to music much, growing up. She'd never really had much of an opportunity. Sure, there were songs here and there on the radio, but most of it was pop, which, while catchy, eventually all melded together in her head as some amorphous blob of lyrics and autotune. She'd stayed with a foster family for a while that loved country, and that was how she figured out she did  _not_  love country.

But she'd never really listened to rock, and now, she  _loved_ it. The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, Heart, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd, Eagles, AC/DC, Foreigner, Journey...she could have gone on forever, just listening to the selections from the jukebox. She wanted to pick up the jukebox and take it home with her, but she settled for slowly buying digital copies of each album she liked as she got paid (and she also begged Maz for an employee code that would allow her to pick songs herself whenever the diner got too slow).

Now her iPhone boasted a few dozen albums, and she added a new one almost every week.

She was air-guitaring to BTO's  _You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet_ and was halfway to head-banging along when she heard a deep, booming laugh from behind her.

Rey blushed immediately, and spun to see Han, grinning. "Good song, huh?"

"I like BTO," she explained bashfully. It was one thing for random unknown customers to see her, but it was another thing entirely to be caught by someone who knew her (and would likely make fun of her).

"Me too," he chuckled. "Join me for lunch?

"You're due for a break, girlie," Maz called. Rey wasn't sure exactly why her breaks always seemed to coincide with Han's visits, but she wasn't going to complain.

* * *

Things had been a little awkward after Han not-so quietly found out about her purely hypothetical and entirely fictional crush on Ben, but the man didn't seem to be that surprised afterwards when he'd next come in. After she assured him that Poe had just been kidding and delighted in tormenting her existence (which was true, albeit in a different sense that what she'd thought originally), Han had looked her up and down, called her a bald-faced liar, and told her she needed to work on her poker face before trying to shove that much shit.

Then, nothing. He never brought it up again, other than to say she had "strange taste" and that "my son's an idiot, try not to hold it against him", which in retrospect was not a ringing endorsement, but also not the condemnation she'd mentally prepared herself for.

Rey grabbed their usual order from the kitchen, now practically gliding on the skates. It felt good to casually travel on them now, even if her calves burned like hell after every shift.

They sat at the typical booth, exchanging pleasantries, and then fell silent as they both devoured their burgers. Rey was thankful for her continuous training, because otherwise there was a very good chance Maz' food would have sent her straight into the arms of heart disease. She had no idea how Han moved and lived as energetically as he did, considering the man's famish predisposition to getting some of the most delicious stuff on the menu, with the downside of it being the kind of caloric bomb that would leave Rey full for days.

"So," Han said, apropos of nothing, "what's my idiot son done this time?"

Rey blinked, slightly taken aback by the question. They hadn't talked about Ben in a while. Since before she'd last seen him, even. "Um, what do you mean?"

"I mean," and here he punctuated the word with a gnarled finger jab in her direction, "that up until a few months ago, you were all for me dishing out all the foolishness my kid got up to when he was young. And then you stopped."

"Oh." Rey thought of Ben's smile, his thoughtless admission that he wasn't going to come back. Of how it hurt to hear and how she wanted him to hurt for it in return. "I haven't..been in the mood."

The other man snorted. "How long's it been since you two talked?"

"...three months."

"He do something stupid?"

"No," she said automatically, "well, yes. But I did too."

"Of course ya did," Han said, indifferent. "But you're a teenager. You're supposed to get all your stupid out of ya now when you're young, so you can be less stupid when you get older."

Despite herself, she couldn't stop the twitch in her lips from turning into a smile, "How'd that work out for you?"

"Ask me when I get older," came his easy reply, and subsequent grin, "I've still got another twenty years in me, firecracker."

She groaned. "Oh come  _on_. Stop calling me that."

"If the shoe fits," he said carelessly, "and what's the deal anyways? It's a compliment, in case that ponytail of yours is too tight for you to get it."

Raising a hand to her hair self-consciously, Rey could only splutter out, "My ponytail is just fine, thank you."

"Bah, you kids are wound too tight." He took a long draw from his beer, planting it on the table with a audible clink. "So, what'd my fool son do this time?"

"Nothing it's just..." She blew a stray bang out of her face. Her palms itched with the memory of her nails digging in, the rush of blood in her ears as she heard Ben say he wasn't coming back. She sighed and folded her arms, placing them on the table. "He was just a jerk."

_And so was I._

"Mmmm." He licked his lips as he took another sip from the bottle. "You want to talk about it?"

"No," came her immediate reply. "I probably shouldn't even be this angry. It's stupid."

"Stupid is practically Ben's middle name," Han chortled, "Just ask my wife. She'll say it's hereditary."

Rey wrinkled her nose. "You know, you're really harsh on him. He's not  _that_  bad."

"No?" He gave her an unimpressed look. "Then why are you smiling?"

She realized she was. Rey covered her mouth, and looked away. "It was nothing."

"Sure it wasn't," he needled. "Why don't you tell me something about him then. Something about him that just drives you crazy."

Should she really be doing this? She didn't know what the rules for fighting with your best friend were but complaining about him to his dad - with whom he had a very complicated relationship - seemed a teensy bit wrong.

But something inside her seem to give at the opportunity to finally talk about what happened, and before she knew it she was saying, "I hate the way he just stops looking at you sometimes like you're not even there."

"He still does that?" Han shook his head, "Never mind, of course he does. Got him into a lot of trouble when he was younger. He'd just stop talking to people mid-conversation and then act all surprised they were still there."

"And his hair," Rey couldn't stop the reflexive curl of her lip as the dam of thoughts and condemnations started spilling forth, "God forbid anyone touch his hair. He nearly yelled at a guy in our Dojang for opening a wet umbrella indoors. He kept checking his reflection to see if any got on him." (Rey had been more than a little disappointed it hadn't. A soaking wet Ben Solo? Awkward as things currently were, that was a sight she'd always want to see.)

"Hey now, don't diss the hair," Han said, primping his own do like some greaser from a different era.

But Rey was not to be stopped. "He's got god awful taste in music too! Like, I'm sorry but can he  _be_  more of a stereotype? The whole dark and brooding warrior thing stopped being cool in the 90's." (Even if he could pull it off. Goddammit could he pull it off.)

"He gets that from Luke actually," Han supplied. He couldn't have looked more at home if had a bag of popcorn.

"Yeah, but Luke doesn't listen to Linkin Park!"

The older man laughed, the sound like it came from a cannon.

"My, and here I thought you actually  _liked_  my son."

Rey choked. Leia - Ben's  _mom_ \- had walked in the door at some point in her rant, and was now standing behind Han.

"That is- I- What I really think-" Thought after thought fired and met a lame end as each explanation and excuse died on her lips. Finally, seeing no other alternative, she pointed accusatory at Han and said, "It's his fault! He made me do it!"

"Of that, I have very little doubt," Leia's voice was devoid of sarcasm, and yet Rey felt like she was being made fun of anyway. Upon seeing her expression the older woman huffed and rolled her eyes. "Oh don't worry dear, you're not the first person to get riled up over my son. He's just like his father: more brute than brain."

"You wound me, your worshipfulness," he said, his riposte like a whip crack, "I seem to recall a certain someone needing some 'genius mechanic' help when I found her broken down car by the highway."

Leia let out a long suffering sigh. "You're right. Idiot savant then?"

"That's not any better, woman!"

"Ignore him," Leia said, speaking directly to Rey again, "my husband gets cranky when it's past his bedtime."

"I will put your hair combs on top of the fridge again!"

"See? Cranky."

Rey had to stifle a giggle, which turned into a snort, and then into a full blown laugh.

After she calmed down, and Leia sat down with them (she'd been in the area talking with Luke about something), the older woman just looked Rey straight in the eye and asked, "So, what'd Ben do this time?"

Which just prompted a whole other fit of uncontrolled snorts and giggles that lasted the rest of her break.

* * *

Almost a week later, just before Rey was about to leave for her usual Saturday shift, it happened with a knock at the door.

Of course, Rey didn't think much of it except  _shit_ and  _what awful timing_  because she'd just finished showering after what should have been a nice morning run (it had started pouring halfway through) and she hadn't finished pulling on her work uniform.

"Just a minute," she yelled at the door, dashing madly back into her bedroom. She pulled on the high-waisted pants that had basically become her uniform for life, because really, when was she  _not_  working lately? She buttoned up the top half of a large, crisp white long-sleeved button-up before tying the bottom portion where it met the top of her pants.

Finally, she ran back toward the door. For obvious reasons (namely, her desperate wish to not break an ankle) she left the skates off, with plans to put them on when she got to the diner.

Another knock, and Rey yanked the door open, a bit breathless when she said, "What's up?"

And then, of course, she froze and did an exceptional job of imitating a deer stuck in someone's headlights.

He stood a little hunched in and looking ungainly in the unlit hallway outside the door. He was bouncing nervously on his heels, in dark gray sweatpants and a black waffle-knit long-sleeved shirt that stretched flatteringly (way too flatteringly) across his chest and shoulders. In one arm he had his coat bundled up, and in the other, he had a white-knuckle grip on a generic-looking brown paper bag.

Rey still hadn't budged. Or blinked.  _Was she even breathing?_

"Can-" Ben took a deep breath, and then continued, "Rey, can I come in?"

Her first instinct was to launch herself at him and give him a hug. That instinct fought with the part of her that wanted to slam the door in his face after telling him to go fuck himself.

After all, it had been over  _three months_  and she hadn't heard a damn thing from him.

Three. Months.

A moment later, his deep brown eyes turned a bit sad, and searched hers for any sort of reaction. " _Please?_ " he asked softly.

Well,  _shit_. Rey snapped out of it, ignoring both the voice encouraging hugging, and the one that wanted to be a lot less pleasant. She settled for something in the middle, completely ignoring the third voice that reminded her about the time she'd seen those broad shoulders sans shirt.

Rey leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms over her chest. "Why are you here?" she asked, her voice sounding a lot smaller than she'd intended.

"I've been trying to figure out how to apologize," he said quietly. His eyes didn't meet hers anymore. Instead, they were carefully trained toward the floor. "I was passing by the bookstore early this morning and it gave me an idea, so I wanted to get here as soon as possible." He sighed, and looked back up at her with shiny eyes, "Look, Rey, I know my leaving upset you, and I didn't know how to explain it at the time, and I snapped at you when I shouldn't have. I could have handled that better. I just wanted to make sure you know that I left the Dojang - just the Dojang."

He worked his lips together in that typical  _Ben Solo_  way and said softly, "I didn't leave  _you_."

She huffed, mostly in an attempt to still be mad at him, which was starting to be a difficult task. "So why didn't you say that three months ago?"

Ben smiled, and pulled a brown paper bag from behind his back. "I should have. I didn't react well. And like I said, I've been trying to figure out how to apologize. Properly. I didn't figure it out until this morning."

Rey's eyes narrowed at the bag. "And?"

"You're uh...all caught up on the Dresden Files, right?" he asked casually.

One of Rey's eyebrows went up. "What's that got to do with anything?"

Ben groaned, "Could you be a little less difficult for once? Just answer the question."

"Yeah," she said, rolling her eyes, "I finished the series a little while after the tournament. What's that have to do with you apologizing?"

He smirked, as if he knew some big secret she didn't. "Been by a bookstore lately? Like, sometime in the last twenty-four hours?"

She shrugged. "No?"

He smiled broadly, pulling two identical books from the bag he still held. "Then I guess you didn't get a copy of  _Peace Talks_  before it sold out _._ "

Rey's eyes went wide the second her eyes landed on the cover. "Oh my God. OH my  _God._  It's out?!" She had to stop herself from jumping up and down, "Are you serious?"

"Uh huh," he smirked again. "And you can have your copy, and you can spend all day reading it.. _.if_ you let me in."

Her lips curved into a smile. "Are you trying to bribe me?"

"Uh, yeah," he deadpanned. "Is it working? I already talked to Maz. You've got the day off if you want it." He paused, and got a bit exasperated at her reluctance. "Look, you don't even need to talk to me, okay? Just let me hang out with you today. All I'm asking for is a day where we sit in the same apartment, read this book, maybe eat some food, and don't fight."

For a moment, Rey considered snatching one of the books from him and slamming the door before he had a chance to come in or take it back. But a part of her wanted to spend time with him. She missed him, and...it seemed like maybe he missed her too.

(Which was really all she'd wanted. Ugh. Stupid hormones.)

Rey sighed, "Fine. But if you read faster than me and spoil anything, I'm kicking you out."

"I wouldn't expect anything less," he agreed stoically.

* * *

After Rey swapped her now-unnecessary work uniform for a cozy pair of fluffy polka-dotted pajama pants and black tank-top with a sports bra (which, much to her dismay, was probably completely unnecessary), she grabbed a blanket and curled up in it on her daybed. Ben was reading in the living room, and seemed determined to give her as much space as she wanted.

That seating arrangement lasted all of an hour, at which point he burst into her room, his voice loud and demanding. "Have you gotten to the end of chapter six?!"

"No," she hissed, "don't you  _dare_  spoil anything! I have three pages left to it."

He nodded, and walked over to sit on the edge of the day bed, practically buzzing, impatiently waiting for her to catch up.

After a few minutes she gasped. "Holy crap! Seriously? Did they just-"

"Did you finish it?" he asked again, scooting back and leaning over to see where she was in the chapter.

"Did they just kill-"

"Yeah, I think so! I mean, did you really think  _Peace Talks_ would be peaceful?" he interrupted excitedly. "Get all those people in one room and something's bound to go wrong, especially with Dresden there."

"Yeah, but..." Rey turned her head to reply, and stopped when she realized his face was barely inches from hers. At some point he'd climbed fully onto the daybed, and now they sat side by side while he glanced over her shoulder.

"What?" he asked after a few moments of silence. He considered Rey carefully, and his brow furrowed. "Everything okay?"

 _Was everything okay?_ Well, the object of her completely inappropriate crush was less than inches away, sitting next to her  _on her bed_ , while they both read a book they'd been looking forward to for nearly a year (or, likely much longer, in his case).  _Okay_  was most definitely an understatement.

"Yeah," she said softly, "It's okay." And then, because her brain wasn't exactly working properly, she said, "I just really missed you."

She regretted it for approximately two seconds, until he smiled so widely he lit up the room despite the rain and the dreary gray-tone that showed through the windows.

Rey turned her gaze back to the book quickly before Ben noticed her blush.

A minute or two later, he moved to get up, and when Rey noticed, she cleared her throat, and said (in what she hoped was a casual voice), "You can stay."

He looked back at her, confused and hopeful at the same time. "I can go back to the couch if you still want space."

She rolled her eyes. "Just sit back down."

"Good,” he sighed, “that couch is nowhere near as comfortable as this bed."

"I know," Rey chuckled. "I think it's because of all the pillows."

"You know, normally I'd make fun of someone for having so many," he commented, "but this is pretty great."

She tried not to think too hard about that comment while he pulled back the oversized comforter and reclined, wedging himself into a spot between where Rey was sitting and the row of pillows that were cushioned against the hardwood edge of the daybed.

A few chapters later, Rey realized her head was on his shoulder, and she had, at some point, curled up next to him. Thankfully, he either didn't mind, or he was too engrossed in the book to notice, so she stayed where she was.

With the exception of a few exchanges of "Holy crap" and "Did you get to  _that_  part yet?", the only noise either of them heard was the rain outside, which had apparently turned torrential. They stayed there for another hour or so, until Ben heard Rey's stomach growling.

He chuckled. "We should probably take a break and get some food."

Rey looked up from her spot in the book and glanced up at him. If he hadn't noticed her head on his shoulder before, he definitely did now. Apparently he didn't mind, because he was smiling softly down at her.

"I really don't want to go out in the rain," she whined. "It's freezing out there, even for February, and I got caught in it this morning and now I'm all warm and cozy and-"

"Oh relax," he interrupted, shaking his head in amusement, "I was going to suggest we order-in. Pizza? Hawaiian?"

She sighed happily. "I've really missed being around someone who likes pineapple on pizza. I mean, Luke does too, but lately he's been really into home cooked meals - he's gotten better at cooking, by the way, so we haven't ordered pizza in forever. And every time I suggest it to Rose and Finn they think I'm nuts."

"Well," Ben said seriously, "you are, but not because of your taste in pizza."

Rey's jaw dropped, and she grabbed the nearest pillow and smacked him with it.

"Hey!" he shouted. He laughed and put up his hands to block the offending pillow, "Okay, okay, I take it back!"

"You better," she smirked. "Jerk."

"Jerk?" he asked, acting shocked. "Me? A jerk? After I brought you this new book - these were the last two in the store, by the way - and promised to order us pizza?"

"Ehhh…" Rey wiggled her hand in a "so-so" fashion and pretended to seriously consider the question. "I guess it depends on how good the pizza is…"

"Brat."

Before she knew it, he'd launched a pillow at her. (Bless Luke and his overindulgence of plush.)

"Ben!" She gasped, and then grabbed another pillow and whacked him in the head.

"Hey-"

He was interrupted by the same pillow catching him again, and before it landed a third time, he tore it from Rey's hands before tossing it across the room and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him into a tight hug before she could reach for another pillow to assault him with.

"What are you doing?" she giggled, feeling a bit hyper from their pillow fight. She tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but he only held her tighter.

"Well, it was the only way I could think of to get you to stop," he said, sounding thoroughly entertained.

Rey's heart warmed at the feeling of his arms around her. She hadn't gotten a hug from Ben in months, and there was no way she'd be letting go any time soon. Instead, she turned a bit, nuzzled her head into his chest, and wrapped her arms around his neck. She sighed contently, and felt her whole body relax in a way it hadn't in quite a while.

After a minute, she felt him relax too, and just before she drifted off, she felt a press of lips to the top of her head, and a whisper of "I missed you too, Rey."

She woke up from her nap maybe an hour later, a little disappointed to find that Ben had read on without her. At least he didn't comment on how she'd slept with her arms wrapped around him. If anything, it seemed that he didn't mind at all.

"I ordered pizza," he said, upon noticing she'd woken up. "I was going to wake you up in a few minutes. It should be here soon."

"Perfect," she crooned, "Do you mind if I read while I eat? Is that horribly antisocial of me?"

Ben laughed. "I think that's the perfect kind of social, actually. Pizza, a cozy daybed, a couple of books, and," he elbowed her gently, "pretty decent company. If you ask me, this is the best way to spend a cold, rainy day."

"Yeah," Rey said quietly, unable to keep the ridiculous grin off her face, "yeah, it is."

* * *

Luke returned home drenched, but grinning like a loon. If his knowledge of Rey's Saturday work schedule was correct, she'd be home around 10 PM, which was in about half an hour. It would give him just enough time to shower, change, and get the near-permanent smile off his face before she got home and asked him about it. Appearances for certain things had to be kept, even if she did monopolize the bathroom with all those bottles of who-knows-what.

He was expecting to find the apartment empty, so when he noticed Rey's rollerskates still by the door, next to a larger pair of men's boots that were not his own, Luke frowned. Praying he wasn't about to walk in on Rey with some boy from school (Luke knew that she was a teenager who sometimes behaved exactly as most teenagers do, but he didn't need to  _see_ it and he sure wasn't looking forward to  _that_  conversation), he poked his head in through her open bedroom door.

It took him a few seconds to fully process everything.

The first surprising part was the fact that Ben was there.

The second surprising part - and the part that had Luke's eyebrows sitting up at the top of his forehead - was the fact that his nephew was stretched out on Rey's bed. With Rey curled up next to him.

Ben was on his back, and Rey was pressed into his side with her head laying on his chest, her arm resting over his waist. One of Ben's arms was wrapped around her back, holding her close, and the other was by her neck, cupping her head, fingers tangled in her hair.

By the time Luke took in the fact that they were both sleeping soundly, wrapped up in a nest of blankets, each of them with their arms wrapped protectively around the other while a couple of books and an empty pizza box lay, forgotten, to the side…

His heart damn near stopped.

The issue was, Luke wasn't sure if it was because the scene was sweet and touching, or if it was because it made him just a little apprehensive. That being said, he wasn't sure how to react. It took him a few minutes of staring before he decided to turn off her light, let them sleep, and handle it in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Parental warnings, typical 16-year-old things, and classic rock.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> AttackotDC: I'm pretty sure it's physically impossible for me to write a scene for these two that isn't either dramatic or really fluffy. Next chapter is picking up in pretty much the same spot.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: We are not responsible for any self-induced cavities from reading this. That's entirely on you. So don't blame us. Also, for those who may have gotten excited about a Peace Talks release, alas, not yet. (Brief Cases is available though, and oh my god I love the last story). Next one chapter will be coming down the line sometime Saturday, barring no real life events stopping anything.
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 
[ thebuildingsnotonfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/) 



	20. Red Belt/Black Stripe, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Picking up right where we left off! I'm glad you all enjoyed the fluff and cuddling from the last chapter...but one of the characters specifically did not appreciate the cuddling.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> PS: Some people have been asking about Belts, so here's a picture of mine!
> 
> [ Attack's Belts](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/174959501242/in-order-white-orange-plus-green-stripe/) 
[ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


The next morning, Rey woke up to the shrill chirping of her phone and realized quickly that she was wrapped around something very solid, very warm, and most importantly, very person-shaped. Her eyes snapped open to find Ben sleeping next to her. Well..not just next to her. At some point his arm had reached around and pulled her close, her head held against his chest. It wouldn't be a lie to say she'd be content to just stay and listen to his rhythmic and soothing breathing all day.

They must have fallen asleep while reading. A small well of warmth arose from her chest as she realized something else. He hadn't left.

After half a minute of the annoying chirping she'd tuned out, Ben groaned and cracked an eye open. "Rey, would you shut that damn thing off?"

"Sorry, it's my alarm for work- Oh!" Rey untangled herself from him and shot up, climbing over Ben to get out of the daybed that called to her like a Siren, "Shit, I have to get ready for work."

When she got up, Ben swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, and for once, they were actually at the same height. She gave him a quick smile, and made it  _maybe_  a foot closer to the door when his arm shot out, grabbed her hand, and pulled her back into a tight hug where he sat on the edge of her bed. He rested his chin on her shoulder, and Rey found herself sighing contently.

Sure, she had to get ready for her shift with Maz, but Rey was more than willing to be a bit late if it meant more hugs from Ben, and he must have been thinking the same thing, because he hummed. "Look at you, being responsible. I could probably get her to give you another day so we can finish the book."

"Yeah, but," Rey pulled back reluctantly, "I know she won't have anyone who can cover my shift. Maz might put me through hell, but I don't want to do that to her."

He nodded. "Next weekend? I'm pretty busy during the week, and you probably are too, with school and everything."

"Don't you only have six or seven chapters left?" She raised an eyebrow. "I'll understand if you just want to finish it on your own."

"I'll be busy this week," he repeated, shrugging. "And I've waited five years for this book, I can wait a few more days. What do you think, I can pop in at the end of your shift next Saturday, maybe grab some food, and finish reading these?"

Maybe she was dreaming. Rey subtly pinched her thigh just to be sure, but nope...not a dream.

"Sounds perfect." She hesitated, and then added in a small, possibly desperate voice, "Just...don't disappear on me again, okay?"

His smile dropped as he cringed. "I won't. I promise."

"Good." She smirked, attempting to lighten the mood, "Because if you did, I'd probably have to murder you."

The frown on Ben's face disappeared, and he rolled his eyes. "I said I promised."

She smiled, nodded, and gave him another quick hug before she rushed off to the bathroom to take what now needed to be a really,  _really_  quick shower.

* * *

Luke sat at the dining room table, one leg crossing the other, drumming his fingers on the his knee. He was waiting for Ben to come out and explain  _why_  he was in the apartment considering their last face-to-face meeting had ended with Luke needing to remodel the office.

Why he stayed the night would follow right after.

He pretended not to hear the two of them making plans for what could quite possibly end up being another sleepover, and he saw Rey rush out of her room and into the bathroom, presumably to get ready for work. Normally he would have woken her up early so they could get their usual Sunday breakfast before her shift started, but Luke sure as hell hadn't wanted to be the one to wake the two of them up.

For one, they both looked ridiculously comfortable and he would have felt bad disturbing them. Two, he wanted the extra time to figure out what to say to Ben, aside from the fifty-three variations of "You idiot" Luke had memorized by heart. Three, he was pretty sure they both needed the sleep and the quality time together.

And there was a fourth reason. Luke couldn't quite put his finger on it, but it had something to do with feeling like he'd be interrupting something private, and that made him uneasy.

Finally, Ben shuffled out of Rey's room, his eyes groggy, and his dark hair a complete mess. He pulled a hand through it, pulling it out of his face. He froze the second he noticed Luke, sitting at the table, facing him, giving him the sort of  _look_  a parental figure learns to give. (Luke had learned how to make such an expression about a week after Ben moved in, when he came home to two holes in the wall, courtesy of his nephew).

"Take a seat, Ben," he said kindly. There was no need to scare the boy.  _Yet._

Ben took a deep breath to compose himself before approaching the table and sitting down across from him.

The two stared at each other, neither saying a thing, as each of them waited for the other to make the first move. Finally, his voice low and his neck stiff, Ben said by way of greeting, "Uncle Luke."

 _Stubborn boy_ , was the first thing Luke thought.  _Just like his father_.

He stopped strumming his fingers along his knee, and offered the young man his undivided attention. "I'm glad to see you've straightened things out with Rey."

Ben blinked.

"What? Were you expecting some recrimination from your old master?" Luke snarked, privately enjoying the nonplussed look in his nephew's eye, "Don't go getting a big head. Rey's been having a hard time, and considering I'm her de facto guardian now, I'd like to think she's something of a priority."

"Wait, so Plutt-"

"Is  _not_ your problem, if I need remind you."

There was a crackle of tension in the air. A guitar string pulled too tight, ready to snap and lash someone's face open. For a brief moment, Luke wondered if they'd come to blows there, in the apartment, with Rey not even twenty feet away the next room over. He liked to think that such a thing would never have happened, but considering Ben's recent actions and who he was working for...

But, it seemed, Ben had learned patience in his time away. Or something close to it. He sat back in his chair, having half-risen earlier, and sighed. "How's she been? I...haven't been around."

Luke shook his head. "She's better at hiding it than before, but I'm getting better at reading her. She's been bothered a lot, enough that it's started affecting her training. I wish you'd cleared things up earlier but..." he shrugged, keeping his voice clear of any emotion, "better later than never, I guess."

It seemed that took all the wind out of his sails.  _So ready to wander into a fight with your family_ , Luke wondered.  _Have you always been like this? Or have you changed so much already?_

There was genuine confusion in Ben's voice when he asked, "You're not mad?"

"Mad at you?" Luke repeated, and then shook his head. "Not really, no. Concerned for you, obviously. Disappointed? Yes, very much so, but that doesn't mean I'm mad at you."

Happy that he was alive and well? Absolutely. Luke had seen what good students, promising students, ended up like under Snoke's tutelage. That Ben still had that spark of life in his eyes took a weight off Luke's soul.

"Why would you be concerned?" Ben asked, his voice challenging

Luke looked up at him with steely eyes, "Don't think for a minute that I don't know who you're working for."

"Master Snoke?" Ben queried, "What about him?"

Luke crossed his arms over his chest, and looked at Ben with half-lidded eyes. "You aren't that naive. Tell me you know what you've gotten yourself into."

"He's not a bad man," Ben argued, punctuating the statement by leaning forward on the table, "I've met him. He's normal. A little arrogant but the same could be said for other masters." The words  _including you_ went unsaid, but the message was delivered all the same.

Luke didn't let the disgust he felt at the comparison show. "He's a dangerous man, Ben. We all are, in some ways. Alistair Snoke just sought out more ways than anyone I know."

"You're talking like he's some sort of mafia boss or warlord or something," Ben grumbled. He rolled his eyes, and muttered, "At least Snoke's willing to do what needs to be done-"

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Luke interrupted, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers, "and I'm specifically going to not ask what you mean, because I  _know_  you aren't that stupid, no matter how testosterone-driven you are."

"Is this how it's going to be then?" Ben said, voice curt and eyes narrowed, "You insulting my choices because I left? Are you really that petty? I'm not sixteen anymore, Luke."

Part of Luke wanted to point out that Ben hadn't been nearly this difficult when he was sixteen (a period of his life that nearly drove Luke to drink, which should say all that needed to be said) but that way lay nothing but more arguing. "I don't want to get into this with you," he scoffed, "I just wanted to give you a friendly warning about you new boss."

"Master Snoke has treated me with respect so far... _sir_."

It stung to hear such a tone coming from the boy he practically raised. More than it probably should have, considering the distance he should have kept as Master and former student. Shaking his head, Luke tried to keep the exasperation muted as he said, "You're an adult. This is your decision, but I'm not going to pretend that I'm not worried about you. I've heard things about Snoke. Please be careful."

The light from the window shone on Ben's face then. One half shadowed, the other brilliantly lit by the morning sun. His lip curled as he then responded, with a tone of finality, "I can take care of myself sir."

From physical dangers, of that Luke had no doubt, but the scariest people Luke had ever met very often didn't need more than words.

"Speaking of sixteen," Luke said, changing the subject for both their sake. He made no effort to disguise his intentions with this next sentence. His purposefully lowered his voice, and let himself fall into a familiar, more menacing frame of mind from when he was younger. "You might be my nephew, but if you ever -  _ever_  - try to drag Rey to anything even remotely related to that gym..."

He let the threat hang in the air, watching the other man's jaw tense and his facial muscles twitch with repressed responses. Luke loved Ben like a son. He'd freely admit to that. But he had a responsibility towards Rey, and that meant he would protect her at all costs.

Eventually Ben nodded, and stood up, then walked toward the door, clearly in a rush to be done with the conversation.

Luke called back to him, "I meant what I said. I really am glad you straightened things out with the kid."

"Yeah," Ben said quietly, "me too."

"Oh, and one more thing," Luke said casually, just as his nephew was reaching for the doorknob, "You're always welcome here, but next time you stay over, I think you'll find the couch more to your liking. I think you'd be much happier sleeping there, because, Ben," he paused, making flinty eye contact with a the now nervous-looking man, "I love you like my own son, but I can honestly say that if I  _ever_  catch you in Rey's bed again, for any reason, you won't like what I do about it. I don't think I need to remind you that she's  _sixteen_."

Ben turned back to face Luke, and blinked. Luke knew immediately that he'd managed to scare his nephew  _just_ the right amount. "Right. Of course. Sorry. About that, I mean," Ben stammered, "Sorry. We were reading, and we fell asleep, I didn't intend-"

Luke brought his hand up, effectively silencing Ben. "I know you well enough to know that you didn't intend anything by it, and I don't need an explanation. I just need to make sure you understand that it's not appropriate and can't happen in the future."

"Yes," Ben said, his eyes still wide, "I understand. It won't happen again."

"And if it does?" Luke asked cooly.

"It won't, sir," Ben answered, much more quickly than when the subject had been Snoke.

Luke hummed. "Good answer."

* * *

Rey was mildly disappointed when she found that Ben had left while she was getting ready for work, but she wasn't surprised. She had to get to work, and...well, she was walking on air anyway, so it didn't bother her  _that_ much.

Luke had seemed grumpier than usual when she gave him a hug goodbye, along with a quick apology for not having breakfast with him. He just grumbled something about her needing a babysitter in the future, which was unexpected, but Rey ignored him and dashed out of the apartment, rushing to work before she was late.

She burst into the diner, her skates hanging from one of her hands, just as the hands on Maz's clock twitched to the 8 AM position. Rey sighed, relieved that she'd made it, and sat down to tie up her skates.

"Good timing, girlie," Maz shouted from the kitchen. Rey was about to shout back, but Maz came out into the dining area and studied Rey for a minute before flipping the sign on the door to  _open_. "You look happy," she commented. "You finally make up with that boy of yours?"

Rey flushed, embarrassed by how easily Maz had read her. "Uh, yeah," she admitted, "he came by yesterday."

"I know." The woman grinned. The sight would've made children scream. "Poor boy came here first. Begged me to give you the day off," she said, laughing.

"Oh, right," Rey said, remembering she hadn't thanked Maz for letting her take the day. "Thanks for that. We had a really good day."

"Good," Maz replied, "Maybe now you'll both stop moping all the time."

"Moping? I haven't been moping!"

Maz shrugged, "Eh. Maybe you haven't been bad, but  _he_ 's been moping. He would come in a few times a week, while you were at school, always asking if you were okay. Checking up on you." She chuckled, "That boy's got his father's heart and his mother's stubbornness."

Rey smiled softly. "He was checking up on me?"

"Back to mooning, then." Maz looked disconcertingly pleased. "Better than moping. Still annoying. Should I get the broom or are you gonna start working?"

"On it!"

* * *

> _"Well he seemed broken hearted,_
> 
> _Something within him._
> 
> _But the moment that I first laid-_
> 
> _Eyes on him,_
> 
> _All alone on the edge of seventeen-"_

Rey's epic solo - and it was definitely epic because it came complete with dance moves - was rudely interrupted by a bark of laughter. Maz had left her alone in the diner (for whatever reason, she didn't specify) with a promise that she'd be back in ten minutes, and Rey was in the process of closing up, so she hadn't exactly expected company.

And as she usually did whenever closing the diner, Rey elected to listen to music from the jukebox.

Which was what led to her singing.

And dancing.

_Oh no._

Rey whirled around, mortified, to see who'd walked in on what what probably one of the most embarrassing moments of her life.

Han. Of course it was Han. His arms were crossed over his usual leather jacket, and he was leaning on the counter, grinning like a maniac. The music was only loud enough that she hadn't heard the entry bell  _again_  (she seriously needed to stop doing that). God only knew how long he'd been watching.

"Don't stop on my account!" he said, clapping and motioning for her to continue, "Come on, kid, I didn't know Maz was doing live music! Let's see what else you've got.  _Stevie Nicks_ ," he chuckled. "You're just full of surprises."

Rey seriously debated throwing a nearby open bottle of ketchup at his head and only didn't because she knew she'd have to be the one to clean it up. She opted for some napkins instead. They flew miserably, like sickly pigeons, and the only one that got even close was snatched in midair by the older man.

"Now, that's not nice," Han said, his cocky grin firmly in place as he unfolded the napkin on the counter. "What would Maz say if she caught you throwing stuff at your customers, like that?"

"She'd be disappointed I didn't use a plate instead," she deadpanned, even as she rolled up behind the counter, and grabbed some utensils.

"You know, you used to be a lot nicer," Han said, giving her a side-eye, "What happened to that nice girl who called me  _Mr. Solo?"_

"She heard you open your mouth, is what." Even as she said it, Rey couldn't help the smile on her face. "You know we're closing up for the night, right?"

Han grunted. "Never stopped me from overstaying my welcome, kid. Check the back. Maz should've known I was coming."

She skated out back into the kitchen, and sure enough, there was Han's usual under the heating lamp. Along with Rey's.

She brought the food and they sat at their usual booth. Rey was fairly certain there was a groove in the seat now in the shape of her body with how many times she ate there, but she ignored the thought as her stomach threatened mutiny if she didn't eat something  _now_.

They ate in relative silence, the only sounds that of their forks and knives as they cut their respective burgers into more manageable pieces. Finally, when he finished the last bite, smacking his lips and wiping his face with the napkin she'd thrown, he fixed her with a piercing look.

"Luke said you're looking for someone to teach you how to drive."

* * *

Rey was waiting in front of the Dojang when she heard what sounded like music. She checked her phone to make sure it hadn't accidentally started playing, when she saw Han's car spin around the corner at a speed that said any little old ladies better not be crossing any streets today.

> _"-don't make no difference to me, baby,_
> 
> _Everybody's had to fight to be free, you see."_

At least she assumed it was his car. The window was down and blasting Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers at definite sound pollution levels. The car was an older model, one of those expensive looking muscle cars that men start tinkering with in the mid-life crisis, a fact that Rey resolved not to tease Han about  _too_  much.

> _"You don't have to live like a refugee._
> 
> _(Don't have to live like a refugee)."_

It was bright ruby red, the polish on the car having been recently redone judging by its obnoxiously bright glare as it approached her. The metallic grating on the front seemed to purr like a feline as it pulled up alongside her, old rims sparkling and the smell of refurbished leather seats wafting out from the window.

"Hey kid," Han shouted over the music, waving her to join him, "hope you weren't waiting too long. Get in."

Rey remembered the ridiculous turn he just pulled. There was a faint acrid scent hovering in the area too. She wondered if she'd see skid marks where he'd turned.

The metallic monster rumbled patiently for her to make her decision. Rey imagined that if dragons were real, they would sound like this thing.

"Is it safe?" she shouted, because,  _wow_ , it would suck to get turned into street paste on her first time behind the wheel.

"Kid, as long as I'm steering you ain't got nothing to worry. There's nobody safer behind the wheel, I promise you," Han assured her. To punctuate the statement he smacked the steering wheel. Something under the hood made a loud clanking noise. "Err, nevermind that. Just get in."

Muttering the five tenets of Taekwondo to herself, Rey got in the car and prayed she wouldn't end up with hearing loss. As soon as the door had closed, Han took off into the road. After about seven seconds that felt like seven  _decades_  of heart attack, it became obvious to Rey that Han had a very skewed definition of what qualified as "safe". For one, she was pretty sure you weren't supposed to turn so fast you could smell the rubber as it burned against the tarmac. She was also fairly sure that you weren't supposed to go faster when the light was yellow.

Several life-flashing-before-her-eyes turns and swerves later, Han pulled into a parking lot.

"Alright, swap with me," he said, turning down the music, all gruff and completely unaware of how many extra lives they just used in getting here.

Rey waited for her mind to catch up from where she left it, trailing around five hundred feet behind in the oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-die nirvana mental space she'd entered. "You're insane."

The maniac had the gall to laugh.

"That was your first lesson, kid," he said, sounding suspiciously like Master Luke, "assume everyone on the road is crazy. Even yourself."

" _That makes no sense!_ " she shrieked, her voice shrill.

* * *

Rey let out a whine, slammed the large book she was studying closed, and let her head drop down, smacking into the hardcover of the book.

"...ow."

A giggle came from Rose's direction. Rey had gotten Luke's permission to miss her usual Monday training session after having reluctantly agreed to spend the afternoon in the school's library with Rose and Finn.

They were preparing for an unavoidable, impending doom. One that would be the cause of their nightmares for years to come - the cause of their never-ending suffering and torment.

SATs.

Finn snorted. "It's not  _that_  bad, Rey. I mean," he glanced down at the book in front of him and sighed, "the vocab sucks, but the math section looks pretty easy."

"Easy for you to say," she grumbled. "You guys are on the robotics team. And the math team."

Rose perked up and gave Rey one of her megawatt smiles, "And that's exactly why we're the perfect people to study with! We're like, the dream team, Rey. Finn and I have got the math stuff down, and you're really good at the reading and writing parts."

"Reading and writing?" Rey's brow crinkled in confusion. "I really don't see how that's my strength."

"Really?" Finn asked dryly. "Rey, you've always got your head in a book. Remember how you nearly ruined our chem experiment because you were too busy reading, and you nearly lit your sleeve on fire?"

He wasn't wrong. Rey had never really had the opportunity to buy books when she lived with Plutt, and library memberships always required parental permission, which she obviously had no hope of getting, and her school library had left a lot to be desired. So when Rey moved in with Luke and had an income that she could use as she pleased?

Well. Luke had been happy to help her pick out a couple extra bookcases for the room, and half a year later, she had stacks of books resting around the room, no space for them on the shelves that were now overflowing. She'd been briefly worried that Luke would admonish her for having so much (and potentially ask her to start contributing to the expenses), but instead he'd just recommended another book series for her and told her there were worse things to spend money on.

"I was reading Pratchett," she smiled dreamily, ignoring the fire-related part of what Finn had said. " _Monstrous Regiment_. Such a good book. It's like...if feminism put a pair of socks down its pants and decided to get the job done instead of a bunch of dumb boys. It's got a lot of cool twists and features that work  _really well_. There's this boarding school of horrors, a blood-abstaining vampire, some accidental misnami-"

"Sssssshhhh!"

The turned to see, Mrs. Grey, the pinched-faced librarian who looked more like a willow tree than a person, with her wispy hair and gnarled face. The three of them offered their best apologetic smiles, and the woman turned away. Rey tried not to think unflattering things about the woman.

"Right, so, ignoring the  _dumb boys_  comment," Finn picked up from where they left off. "I have no idea what most of what you just said means, but you get my point, right? You're way better at that stuff."

"Blame Ben," she laughed, "Luke, too. They're half the reason I read and write so much. Do you have  _any_  idea how many Taekwondo-related essays I had to write after I got that suspension?"

"Did you ever add up how many pages that ended up being?" Rose asked curiously. "I bet it was over fifty."

"A hundred and fifteen, actually."

"A hundred and fifteen pages worth of essay?" Finn exclaimed. "I think I would have quit."

Rey smiled slightly, remembering how close she'd gotten to doing just that, for an entirely different reason. "Nah. It was worth it."

"Agree to disagree," Finn said, smiling. "Although, right now I'm really glad you're good at this stuff, because I'm gonna need your help. What do you think, we-" he gestured to himself and Rose, "-help with the math stuff, and you help us with the other parts?"

"Okay," Rey nodded. "Deal. So, we have today, and maybe we can study friday, too?"

Finn groaned. "Oh, tell me we aren't desecrating bad-horror-movie-sleepover Friday by studying SATs."

"Okay, first, that's a terrible name for it. After over two years, we need something better than  _bad-horror-movie-sleepover Friday_ ," Rose scolded. "Second, the SATs are in two weeks and we probably should have started studying months ago. So, stop complaining."

Rey snorted. "Okay,  _mom_."

"Hey, I was agreeing with you!" Rose laughed. "You bitch. That'll teach me to be on your side in the future."

Rey elbowed her playfully. "You know I'm kidding."

"Yeah, yeah," Rose rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Just know that I'm not going to drive you around unless you're nice to me."

Rose had just successfully tested for her license (on her first try), and after a good deal of hemming and hawing from Luke, he and Rey had compromised - she would be allowed to test sometime during the summer before her senior year (which was rapidly approaching), assuming he and Leia both felt she was prepared. Han was doing most of the teaching, but Luke didn't trust him to decide when Rey was ready. He'd muttered something about Han being too trigger-happy.

After getting in a car with him, Rey was inclined to agree.

Luke seemed pretty convinced she'd never be prepared. Then again, he also refused to get in a car she was driving, so what did he know? At least she didn't run over the curb like Han routinely did. (One time, he even did it in reverse. She had no clue why.)

Rey sighed dramatically. "Fine. I suppose I'll have to be nice to you, my lovely, wonderful, amazing friend."

"You forgot generous. And brilliant. And beautiful."

"Don't push it, Tico."

"Ssshhhhh!"

* * *

The promotion started that morning like any other.

Rey, by virtue of actually living above the Dojang, was the first one there, and had actually been the one to open the place up. Master Luke had received a phone call right as they were leaving. His face had gone grim when he picked up the phone, and he'd shooed her out the door. She'd thought nothing of it then.

There was a specialness to the Dojang when it was like this, a serenity that could not be attained when there were too many students around. Every action seemed magnified like this. Every punch was a strike against a mountain, every block an impossible shield. Every poomse a life or death struggle with people who wanted her dead.

Keeping her breathing calm, she rose from her kneeling position facing the mirror and began Taeguk Il Jang.

Plutt often featured in these instances. Her hands shook occasionally, but she never let herself stop. She remembered the feeling of his blood on her hands in these solemn, silent times. She remembered how easy it had been.

She remembered Luke's invitation into his home, to stay for...however long she needed.

Plutt's face disappeared, her reverse punch burying itself into his imaginary solar plexus. In its place was a short, brown haired girl with her hair done up in triple buns. She was small, and stupid, and scared. She looked like she hadn't slept in three days, even though she damn well made sure to get the proper amount of rest. Arrogant. Dangerous. Not ready.

 _No. I_ am  _ready._

Master Luke had assured her she was. They were still going to continue her solo training, but something in the last few weeks had impressed him enough to let her advance. Part of her was grateful. It was...hard, watching everyone around her move on, while she stayed the same rank. It was both bitter and relieving. She'd felt like some of the onus of responsibility had been removed from her when she knew she wasn't going to advance, but even so, it felt like back in kindergarten, when all the other kids got to go outside for recess, while she had to stay inside and work on her math.

The girl in the mirror smiled, and for the first time that day, Rey believed everything was going to be alright.

Promotion was usually held in the Dojang. One time, Master Luke had had to reserve some gym space at the local rec club, due to the amount of guests (someone had invited their entire extended family to see their Black Belt promotion). Usually though, the Dojang was enough for everyone. Guests sat at the benches that lined the back of the room. It wasn't comfortable seating, but it was far enough for them to be safe in case of a wandering spar or a flying board, while also providing everyone with perfect overview of all those testing. The benches were separated from the main area by a half wall partition, and the majority of the room was taken up by the wide open wooden floor.

Master Luke came down a few minutes after Rey had finished her poomse, looking like he'd swallowed something very disgusting.

"We're going to have a visitor today," he said, sounding like he'd rather anything but, "He'll be helping me judge. I'd like your help in making sure nothing happens with the lower belts."

"I-" Rey paused to catch her thoughts, "Yes, of course, but wouldn't you ask this of the seniors?"

" _You_  are a senior, kid," he said dryly, "And don't worry, I'll spread the news. I just wanted to let you know ahead of time."

"Luke- Sir-" she stumbled, "Master Luke, is everything ok?"

The older man looked at her evaluatingly. "That's something we'll have to find out. Just be on your toes today."

* * *

People started trickling in around eleven. Among them was a man of average height in a grey suit. He wore a dark cobalt undershirt, and his tie glistened with dark velvet stripes and patterns. Instead of joining the rest of the guests, the stranger walked around the partition and leaned against the sidewall, arms crossed. He was smiling, watching everything and everyone from behind his empty blue eyes.

Rey did not shiver when his stare roved over to her. It left, flitting as a bird, but something stuck with her as she realized this was Master Luke's special guest.

As if summoned, Master Luke appeared from the little hallway leading to his office. He scanned the room, surveying its occupants, until his eyes fell on the man in the suit.

The tension in the room ratcheted up, and she looked around to see if anyone else noticed anything. Some of the lower belts shivered, some reached up to touch the nape of their neck, and others had reflexively tensed. None of the guests seemed to have noticed anything, the most noticeable reaction being an older man with a balding pate looking around confused. A few others had noticed the stranger, but on seeing him not do anything other than stick in one place, they turned to other, more pressing tasks.

They didn't see the stranger's smile show teeth.

He crossed the room and both he and Luke went into the back office. As soon as they left the room, it seemed like sound had returned to the Dojang. People were suddenly talking at normal volume again, everyone seemingly unaware of the hush that had befallen the room when the two grandmasters were in their presence.

It felt like something had slithered up her spine. Rey blinked and turned to direct the lower belts to prep the mats in advance. Her voice hitched the first two seconds, and she realized she'd started sweating.

At twelve o' clock, Master Luke and his guest appeared in the doorway. He called Jess over, and, being one of the senior Black Belts, she announced the start of promotion with a resounding, "Everybody line UP!"

They fell into their accustomed rows and columns, each one of them unconsciously more straight, more still, as Master Luke began to speak.

"Welcome, everyone," he intoned, "Before we proceed, I'd like to introduce someone of great repute within the Taekwondo community. This man has been on the forefront of every major discussion with regards to martial arts as a whole, he has sponsored a good many talented young men and women through a variety of trials and he has been involved at every level of teaching Taekwondo for at least thirty years."

The stranger stepped forward, and Rey took his appearance in. Eyes as cold and piercing as icicles. Silver hair groomed professionally with not a strand out of place. Smile lines that bespoke of hidden amusement at the world. He was of average build, average height, and yet nothing and everything about him was setting warning bells off in Rey's head.

The stranger smiled once more. Rey was reminded of several old nightmares of things involving sharp teeth, unending appetites, and a yearning for something...alive.

"Please, everyone, let's welcome Grandmaster Alistair Snoke!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Time travel, not a date, and the color brown.
> 
> Taekwondo Notes: Not much to say here, except that it's not uncommon for Grand Masters to show up at promotions of other Dojangs to help judge. In this case, Snoke would have contacted Luke prior to the promotion and informed him that he would help preside over judging. As Snoke is a seventh dan (Luke is a sixth), technically he has every right to be there, and Luke doesn't have much say in the matter. While tradition is such that Luke would be informed of this more than a few hours before the examination, circumstances are a little special for these two, which we will address as things progress.
> 
> Also, for any non-US readers, SATs are standardized tests many American high school students take. Many colleges here require SAT test scores, and I believe the test still covers reading, writing and math.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> AttackotDC: So, I like the idea of writing what I know, because it feels like I can make the story a bit richer that way. That's one of the reasons Rey has basically the same taste in music that I do, and Han's got a similar preference to what my dad listens to. There's a lot of overlap between what Rey and Han listen to, and it's a nice thing to bond over. If anyone wants to know what songs we've been using either in-text or just songs that we like to match to different scenes for inspiration purposes, let us know! I spend upwards of eight hours a day (most days) listening to music, so I'm ALWAYS interested in recommending stuff, getting recommendations, or just talking about music.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: Enter Alistair Snoke. Honestly, I'm really excited to write him. One of the hardest things for a story to get right is a good villain. I'm a huge sucker for antagonists, and this one is a hell of a challenge to meet, especially with what we have in mind for him. We'll see more of him, and his influence as things progress. Rey is both growing up and learning more about the martial art, including those who...well, can't say too much more.
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 
[ onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/) 



	21. Brown Belt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Attack: Fluff incoming.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


_**Brown Belt or Sash:**  Brown represents the ripening of the seed, a maturing and harvesting process. A brown belt is an advanced student whose techniques are beginning to mature, and they are beginning to understand the fruits of their hard work as a beginner._

* * *

The diner was relatively empty when Rey and Luke entered. Promotion had gone on for a while, and it was already well past eight hours since Rey had last had anything more than a smushed granola bar and some fruit slices. It didn't help that the whole time she'd been testing she felt like she'd been dancing on a razor's edge. Stances and blocks became strained with tension as she unconsciously straightened every potential flaw and corrected every step in her poomse automatically.

Alistair Snoke, or Grandmaster Snoke as formality dictated he be addressed as, said little with his words and volumes with his mannerisms. There'd been nothing overtly off about him but every time Rey had been called to present and test, she'd become keenly aware of every bit of her body as both Master Luke and Snoke observed her perform. Spontaneous combinations of punches and kicks had left her breathing hard after a few minutes. Every time someone finished, the two grandmasters would confer with each other in as few words as possible, and each time it felt like watching someone escape the gallows as the tested student was sent back to the rest of the group.

But, aside from a minor hiccup where a pair of white belts got overzealous and started striking each other hard enough to injure, the examination concluded without a hitch. There hadn't been anyone testing for Black Belt, so Master Luke only stayed long enough to congratulate and converse with some of the departing students and various members of the audience. Rey had helped with the cleanup, and Snoke had vanished as soon as the ceremony had concluded.

After a quick showers, both she and Luke left the apartment in hopes of finally getting some food in their bodies. Ben had called ahead and said he'd be along soon, and that he was just finishing some stuff up with work.

In line with the rest of her life, though, things couldn't be simple.

Snoke sat at the counter, still in his suit, a glass full of some amber liquid that Rey would have bet her dobok was not sold in the diner. He sat at the counter, brown dress shoes tapping against it in tune with the beats of ABBA's  _Take a Chance On Me_. Like earlier, there wasn't a hair on his head out of place. His eyes were closed as if in pleasure.

Both she and Master Luke drew to a stop as they entered the diner and saw him.

The jukebox seemed to squeal with feedback and Rey thought she saw the man smirk.

"Good evening to you, Grandmaster Skywalker," he said, eyes still shut, "I hope you don't mind me dropping in like this."

Rey could practically hear Luke's teeth gnash together as he replied, "Not at all. We just got here."

Luke stepped forward and Snoke descended from his throne, and the two of them exchanged bows and shook hands. They traded smiles and nods, all according to tradition - all in line with expectations imposed by their ranks, and if Rey had been deaf, dumb, and blind, she would have almost believed Luke didn't want to scrape skin off the spots where they'd made contact.

And then Snoke turned to look at her, and Rey realized he was expecting  _her_  to bow.

Reflex took over and she bowed, and she could only hope that her standing up straight didn't clue him in to her thoughts. Something about exposing her neck to this man did not feel conducive to her health.

"Ah one of your students." Snoke's eyes flicked to Luke and back to her. "Earning your stripe today? You performed well," he said, voice genial and eyes arctic. "In the future try adding a bit more torque to those punches of yours. You keep going as you are and one day you'll be breaking your fists instead of their faces."

"I don't-" Rey's eyes met his stare and some vestigial part of her that still remembered how to react prompted her to say, "I- Thank you, sir."

His lips curved upwards. It was not a smile. Smiles shouldn't make someone think of guillotines.

She was tempted to ask who he was referring to when he said " _their faces_ ", but a warning look from Luke stopped her.

"Have you considered my offer?" Snoke said to Luke, promptly acting as if Rey had never existed. For the first time, genuine anticipation graced the man's features and Rey wished it hadn't.

Luke shook his head, and crossed his arms. He wore a simple forest-colored plaid overshirt and a pair of jeans that he only broke out when it was time to relax. It was a stark contrast to the other's tailor-made suit and tie, and his perfectly groomed face. "I have, and while I'm honored you thought of us, I'm afraid I'll have to decline."

No blink or facial tic graced Snoke's face at the response, as if he'd been expecting such. "That is disappointing," the man drawled. "Please, do keep it in mind for the future. You never know when opportunities such as this appear."

Luke nodded curtly. "I'll do so. Now, I'm afraid I'm here to celebrate, if you'll please excuse us."

Snoke stepped in his way. A hush fell over the diner. Rey dared not look away but was frantically wondering where the hell Maz, Ben, or someone expendable was. "My student sends his regards, Grandmaster Skywalker."

"I'll make sure to return them," Luke said coolly, "when I see him for dinner tonight. Which we are here to eat."

Something pallid and hateful entered Snoke's eyes, the first real expression of emotion other than his lackadaisical amusement. It vanished, brief and fleeting, and Rey wondered if it had ever been there at all.

They exchanged bows like dueling men do at dawn. With a controlled cantor of his shoes hitting the vinyl floor, Snoke exited the building, never once turning back to look back and all the more menacing for it.

After a seconds Rey released the breathe she'd been holding. There was a hollowness in her head and a wardrum in her chest, and neither of those compared to the invisible tar that seemed to coat her body. "Luke... what was that?"

"That, Rey, was a show of power." Luke steadied her, noticing her reaction. "That...is Ben's Master."

* * *

It was a month later that Rey was, once again, thrown for a loop by the fickle mistress known as life.

"So kid," Han said through his food, chewing like a woodchipper, "what do you like to do when you're not being the old ghoul's servant girl?"

"I heard that!" Maz shouted from the kitchen.

"You were meant to!" he yelled back.

Maz said something unintelligible in return and went back to cooking. Rey observed it all with the calm serenity of a farmer watching his crops grow. Maz and Han's byplay had ceased to be some sideshow melodrama and had instead become an indolent routine reminiscent of daytime tv: comforting entertainment that devolved into white noise after the first dozen times.

She waited for him to sit back down before shrugging and saying, "I don't do much. I'm pretty busy. Whenever I'm not working here, I'm training with Lu- Master Luke."

Things had been awkward that night after Snoke arrived. It had only worsened after Ben jumped through the door, panting, unshaven and having skipped a shower on his way there.  _Apparently_ Snoke had been giving him extra shifts recently, and he hadn't wanted to disappoint his grandmaster. Rey wasn't sure what had hurt worse, Ben's almost offhand admittance of Snoke's trust in him, or Luke's face after hearing it.

Han snorted. "You can call him Luke around me, kid. I'm not one of you Wushu supermen who cares about that stuff."

"You know perfectly well that's not what we are," Rey found herself scolding - and  _wow_  was it a trip to realize those words were coming out of  _her_ mouth, "and besides, I've been trying to apply that stuff more often in day-to-day life."

"Uhhuh." Han nodded, "And what's the not-bullshit reason?"

"What makes you think there is one?”

"Because you always look like someone put a snake down your shirt whenever you lie to me, or you look like you want to hit me when I call you out on it." He punctuated this statement with a cocky grin and pointed at her. "See? That look right there."

Rey crossed her arms and glared.

"So what's up?"

She wavered for a minute before deciding. She knew for a fact that Han occasionally held secrets from Luke and Leia, and he'd never been anything other than honest with her. Maybe he could help her recent problem.

"You know how Luke took me in last year," she said, biting her lip and then furtively glancing over her shoulders to make sure the man in question wasn't around (with his tendency of popping up behind people's shoulders it was not an unreasonable worry in her mind), "after everything with Plutt?"

Han's pockmarked face had gained an austere and unflappable look at the mention of the man. "Go on," he said, motioning for her to continue.

"Well, at first I thought he'd somehow managed to get the money Plutt had been receiving for taking me in. Except I know he isn't. Plutt did it electronically and Luke's statements never showed anything like that."

"You've seen his bank statements?" Han asked, eyebrows raised.

"Not intentionally!" she rushed to explain, "I was cleaning things up and you know Luke - he doesn't even have a computer so of course he does everything via paper mail and when I knocked a stack of papers over it just came out and  _IswearIdidn'tmeantolookit'sjust-_ "

"Breathe, kid, breathe!" Han interposed himself in that mess of a sentence. He was laughing. "Jeez, I get it, I get it. You're nosier than a cat on 'nip, but it wasn't your fault. It literally landed in your lap."

Face burning, Rey forced herself to meet his gaze. There was no judgment to be had there. She almost wished there was. Maybe it would have made her feel better.

"Luke's been using all his own money on me," Rey said, shame and guilt vying for first place in her gut, "and I know he's fine, he's got the money, it's just..."

"Part of you still feels like you need to pay him back," he finished for her, "because why would anybody doing anything for someone like you?"

She couldn't have stopped the wince even if she knew it'd been coming. Han's words were blunt and cut straight to the core, lighting up those private worries of hers like big broadway musicals.

"I know I'm being silly," she started rambling, "I know Lu-  _Master_  Luke - took me in because he wanted me to, but college is coming up and I don't want to inconvenience him anymore and I figure the least I can do is start addressing him as he should I've already started applyingforafewjobstohelp-"

"Kid, I swear to God, if you don't close your trap and remember to fill your lungs with air, I  _will_  dump my drink on you, and I'd hate to do that to good beer." To emphasize this he raised his bottle over her head and made to tip it over.

She couldn't have shut up faster if she'd tried, because Han actually had done that once. (Maz had been pissed. She'd even made him grab the mop and clean it up himself. His point had still been made though.)

"Good," Han said, dragging a sip out off the bottle, "I'd hate to make more work for myself to prove my point but you have to learn sometime, firecracker."

"Don't call me that."

"Says the one who might as well  _be_  a firecracker," he shot back, grinning, before turning serious, and listing things off on his fingers, "But let me see if I get this straight. You're worried about money, you don't want to ask Luke for money, you're going to somehow get  _multiple_ jobs to pay for it all, nevermind the fact that you're still in school, and you're basically trying to play perfect guest with the whole formal Master teacher stuff even when he's not around."

"...yes?"

"Y'know, maybe it's a good thing Ben was born a boy. I don't think I could have handled this kind of crap from my own  _wife_ , let alone a kid."

"Hey!"

"I mean, no offense," he continued, entirely offensive nonetheless, "but you're so tightly wound I'm surprised you haven't popped a hair bun."

"Why does everyone keep talking about my hair? I  _like_  my hair," Rey grumbled, self-consciously reaching for her triple bun.

"My point is, kid, you gotta' be young at some point. Even if you have to learn how to be."

Rey scrunched up her face. "Do you just eat a fortune cookie every day and try to figure out how to use it in a sentence or something? I swear, you and Luke are the same way sometimes."

"Well then  _listen_ , for once, instead of assuming you know better," Han said. "If you want, I can get Leia down here to tell you the same thing." A beat of silence. "Actually, can I? I'm pretty sure her majestic royalness thinks I'm incapable of being responsible."

"You are," Rey dropped, "I'm just the only person willing to put up with you and your ravings."

Maz's delighted shout came from the kitchen doorway as she came out with a black plastic bin. "She's got you there, Solo!"

Her quick panicky look over her shoulder was cut off by Han grabbing her and shaking his head. Rey breathed a sigh of relief. Maz hadn't overheard any of her talk about money.

They waited a little bit, murmuring nonsensical things to each other as Maz collected dirty plates around the diner and eventually went back into the kitchen. The only other waitress was on the other side of the diner, scrubbing at a particularly defiant stain of orange juice in the tabletop.

"What do you want to do then?" Han asked, "When you get to college, what are you going to study?"

"I don't know," Rey frowned and looked down at her hands in her lap, "English I think? I like reading and writing, so maybe become a teacher?"

"Hmph. Any class run by you better be gym or a lesson on how not to keep secrets, because you are  _terrible_  at it."

Rey scowled. "And you give the worst motivational speeches ever."  _Just like Ben, actually._

"Tell you what," he said, ignoring her jab, "we're having a cookout in a few months. A bit of a get together once some old friends of mine are back in the country. You think on it over the summer and tell me your answer then. I might have something for you depending on what it is."

"Err….okay?"

"Good, good," he leaned back in his seat, satisfied, "Now, go be a good waitress and get me another beer will you? My head hurts from dealing with a moody teenager"

"How about I break that one over your face? I'm sure that'll cure your headache."

* * *

Junior year had wrapped up with...well, not a bang. The last few weeks of the year had felt like a never-ending mess of SAT-related panic, especially when rumors of some sort of "SAT II" tests broke out amongst the Junior class. Rey had been thoroughly unimpressed to find out that her foray into standardized testing might not be over.

She nearly died of happiness when she discovered her preferred schools only required the SAT.

The end of the school year was celebrated with, unsurprisingly, a few horror movies and a small legion's worth of pizzas. At some point during the year (probably  _after_  Rey accidentally spilled a chemical mix on him), Liam started getting invited. He didn't often come, but after an entire year of chem lab, the four of them got along better than Rey had ever expected.

He'd even  _maybe_ started flirting with her a bit, but Rey wasn't sure and part of her didn't want to have it confirmed...but the looks he was giving her as she skated toward the table he shared with Finn probably sort-of confirmed it.

Liam smiled broadly at her when she arrived at the table, and suddenly her brain picked that exact moment to remind her of a secret make-out session in an unused classroom. It would be a miracle if she didn't blush.

After all, he'd been cute when they dated, but now...now he was  _cute_. A couple years on the soccer team, hair grown out into a slightly messy, three-or-four-weeks-past-a-needed-haircut sort of style that he could definitely pull off, a few added inches of height - it was hard to deny. He wasn't exactly Rey's type (her  _type_  had become incredibly specific (read: Ben Solo)), but it was hard to deny that the guy was attractive.

Rey cleared her throat, smiled back, and asked, "What are you guys doing here? I've never seen you come in."

"Liam suggested it! Sorry we kinda missed you. We're on our way out," Finn explained. "We figured we'd grab something to eat before the video game marathon."

Liam nodded. "Yeah, I got the new Call of Duty, and I've been showing Finn my new gaming PC. It's got a GX-ForcePro graphics card, a built-in customizable water cooling and light setup, and-"

"Uhh...right," Rey said dryly. She didn't mind video games, but when Finn and Liam got talking it was impossible to do anything but zone out. "Well you'll have to come back sometime during my shift rather than leave five minutes after it starts. I'm basically always working during the summer, so stop back in. How'd you like the-"

Rey was interrupted when bell over the door went off and she glanced back to tell her new customer she'd be right with them. Rather than the faceless, unknown stranger she'd been expecting to greet, she was offered the pleasantly surprising view of a smiling Ben Solo.

"Hey kid," he greeted warmly.

All thoughts of Finn, Liam, and whatever video game and cooling setup or whatever were wiped from her mind in an instant, and she smiled stupidly back at him. "Hey Ben," she said softly.

He took a few steps closer and greeted her properly, with what may as well have been a bear-hug, lifting her clear off the floor.

"Ben!" She giggled, "Put me down! I'm on skates!"

"Put the kid down easy, Solo," Maz chuckled, "She's gonna break an ankle."

Ben sighed dramatically and lowered her, keeping his hands at her waist to help her catch her footing on the skates, "Y'know, Maz, you're the one who put her in those ridiculous things."

Rey rolled her eyes, and added, "She's the one who picked this whole uniform. And I like the 50s vibe, but she still hasn't explained why a 50s diner has a 70s and 80s jukebox."

"Watch it girlie," Maz grumbled, "Nobody's complained about the music."

"And we're  _definitely_  not complaining about your ass in that uniform," Liam said under his breath.

Within seconds of his comment, Liam had a few sets of eyes on him, and his own eyes had blown wide as if he couldn't believe the words had come out of his mouth.

Maz glared, huffed a bit, and went back into the kitchen.

Ben...actually, if anything, Rey was mildly amused by Ben's reaction. At least at first.

He stiffened up, put his arm back around Rey, and smiled. Except, anyone who knew Ben would have noticed that the smile he wore was hardly natural. If Rey had to assign it a description, she would have called it his friendly-neighborhood-serial-killer smile.

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Ben chuckled and broke the tension by shaking his head, saying, "Ah. I'm not sure you meant to say that out loud."

He gave Rey a quick look and she smiled, confirming that she wasn't annoyed by whatever protective routine he was about to pull. Then she regretted doing so, and watched in horror as Ben walked over and slid into the booth next to Liam, who looked positively terrified. The terror turned exponential as Ben reached around and clasped Liam's shoulder in what was probably intended to not-look-like something that could easily transition into a chokehold.

"Mister...Liam, was it?" Ben asked, smile rigid and plastic, and not at all threatening. "Have we ever been introduced? I'm Ben, third degree Black Belt in Taekwondo. I've known Rey for quite a while now - you could say she's part of the family and, oh, did I mention that I work at an MMA gym, where I'm training to be a Master?"

Finn chuckled nervously and shot Rey a desperate look that said  _please help_.

"Uhhh…" Liam looked at Rey, clearly unsure of how to respond. "Hi?"

Ben's not-threatening smile grew wider. He was showing teeth. "Hi," he echoed, thoroughly amused. "You know, Liam, one of the things we value in Taekwondo is respecting people, and  _people_ includes pretty girls."

Liam nodded and swallowed thickly. "Uh huh."

"And do you understand what that means?" Ben breathed out softly, studying the boy's face carefully, " _Respect?"_

"...y-yes sir?"

"Good, good," Ben crooned. "So, now that you've seen the error of your ways, are you ready to apologize?"

Up until that point Rey had been watching curiously, wondering where Ben was going with his chat, but the looks both Liam and Finn were giving her finally made her clear her throat and interrupt. "Okay Ben, that's probably enough."

He looked up at Rey, an eyebrow raised. "What do you mean, sweetheart? Liam and I were just having a little talk."

"Yeah, I can see that," she snorted. "And now your little talk is over." She shooed him from the booth with a menu, and pointed him toward their usual booth, on the other side of the diner. "Go. Sit. I'll bring you your usual."

Ben let out a huff, and rolled his eyes. "Fine." He glanced back and Liam and smirked. "It was nice talking to you Liam, I think we should do it again sometime."

"Okay, enough," Rey snapped, temper fraying. "Ben, go sit down and wait. I think you and  _I_  are going to have a  _little talk_  of our own."

He finally crossed his arms and stalked off in the direction of their booth, pouting like a scolded child. Rey took a deep breath, and turned back to the booth where Liam and Finn sat. "Sorry about that," she apologized, "I'll deal with him later."

"Deal...with  _him?"_  Liam asked in disbelief. "You're doing to  _deal_  with the third degree Black Belt? Is this something that happens often?"

Finn snorted. " _You've_ obviously never met Ben. It's an experience. I'd watch what you say around him."

"You know I'm almost a Black Belt myself, right? Maybe you should watch what you say around  _me_." Rey said dryly. Admittedly, that was a year and a half away, but three years ago it hadn't even seemed plausible.

Liam glanced up at her. "Yeah...I really am sorry about that." He coughed, and awkwardly shifted in his seat. "Y'know, I just never realized that being scary was a prerequisite for having a Black Belt."

Finn laughed. "Tell that to Ben."

* * *

After Finn and Liam left (they were in a bit of a rush), Rey took a deep, calming breath, and brought Ben's regular order over to the booth where he was waiting. She sat down across from him, and shot him a  _look_.

He smiled, completely oblivious. "So, what should we do for your birthday?"

"Ah, no," Rey corrected. "That's not what we're talking about. We're going to talk about you scaring customers."

"I'm just not sure I like that kid," Ben grumbled.

"Right, well, you don't need to like him. You just need to leave him alone." Rey sighed, and added, "I honestly think you scared him."

Ben gave her a blank look. "That's what I was going for."

Rey groaned. "Damnit, Ben."

"He'll be fine, and hopefully he'll be more respectful from now on. Stop changing the subject," he laughed, "What do you want to do for your birthday?"

Rey rolled her eyes and gave up what she knew was a losing battle. "It's not like it's a special one or anything, like eighteen. Seventeen is just kind of…eh. It's like oatmeal. It's not  _bad_  but it's also kind of forgettable. Plus, you never let us celebrate  _your_ birthday, so why do we always celebrate mine?"

"If you don't think of something I'm going to let Maz help me plan a super cheesy, obnoxious birthday here at the diner with all your friends," Ben threatened with a surprisingly sinister gleam in his eyes. "Everyone will sing, there'll be a big cake, candles that don't blow out, lots of pictures…"

"Okay, okay," Rey groaned. She shook her head, and smiled slightly, "I can't believe you'd threaten me like that. You  _know_  I'd hate that."

Ben smirked. "Then pick something else. Just...not skating, okay? I'm  _never_  skating again."

"Aww, are you sure?" Rey feigned disappointment, and burst out into giggles the moment Ben's face dropped. "Relax, I'm kidding. Let me think about it?"

"Sure," he nodded.

"Get back to work, girlie!" Maz shouted, just before grinning evilly and adding, "Stop flirting with my customers!"

"Maz!" Rey hissed. She didn't even need to look in a mirror to know she'd turned red, which seemed about right, because Ben rolled his eyes and shared a grin, a hint of pink in his cheeks as well.

The woman looked between the two of them, unimpressed with both. "Do I need to get the broom?"

Rey rolled her eyes and changed tactics. "We were just discussing what to do for my birthday. Do you have any suggestions?"

Maz hummed, and nodded. "What do you kids do nowadays? Still go to the movies? The drive-in's open. Weather's nice enough for it."

"Huh. I've never been to a drive in," Rey commented. She turned to Ben and shrugged. "What do you think?"

He thought about it for a minute and nodded, "Sounds fun, but it depends on what they're showing. Please don't drag me to some awful rom-com."

"Why does everyone always assume I like rom-coms?" Rey asked, crossing her arms over her chest in annoyance. "Poe's asked the same thing. It almost makes me want to pick one just to annoy you."

Maz cackled, "Girlie, I like the way you think. But pick something you'll both like. No sense in watching something neither of you want to see. It'll be awkward sitting in a car if one person ain't enjoying it."

There were many things Rey could think of that she would enjoy doing with Ben in a car, but Taekwondo was about self-control and she exercised that self-control by not letting even an iota of her thoughts show on her face.

"I guess that's fair," Rey sighed. "Fine. No rom-coms. Just as well."

"They're showing old movies," Maz offered. "Back to the Future's on the list."

"Oh, good idea, Maz," Ben said, "Rey, have you seen it?"

"Nope," she said, "what's it about?"

Ben sat back in his seat and drummed his fingers on the table in front of him, thinking of a response, "Well...I don't want to tell you too much. Let's just say it's about a high schooler who gets mixed up in some time-travel related trouble. It's a really good movie. A cult classic."

"Time travel, huh?" Rey laughed. "Since when does that solve anything? Alright, sounds good to me."

"Perfect, when should we go?"

Before Rey could answer, Maz interrupted, "She's free Saturday night, there's a 7PM show. Pick her up here at 6:30. It'll give you time to buy the kid some popcorn. Just don't invite that Liam kid."

Ben glanced over at Rey to confirm, and she gave Maz a confused look, “Uh, yeah, that'll work."

"Okay, I'll see you then. Unfortunately," he looked down at his phone, noting the time, "I have to get to work. Just text me if anything changes before Saturday."

"Sure, see you Saturday," Rey smiled. The smile remained on her face until Ben left the diner, at which point she spun around to face Maz.

"Maz. I'm on schedule to work Saturday night, why did you-"

"Now you're working the lunch shift. Happy Birthday, girlie," the woman interrupted, chuckling. "You should be thanking me. That boy of yours is taking you to a movie."

Rey's eyes narrowed. "You were  _wingmanning_  me?"

The woman shrugged, playing innocent. "I have no idea what you mean, girlie."

Rey rolled her eyes, but remembered her plans for Saturday and suddenly had an impossible time wiping the smile off her face. Thankfully the woman had already started walking back to the kitchen, so she didn't notice.

Manipulative or not, Maz got results.

* * *

Rey flopped back on her bed, groaning. "I'm never going to find something."

"Relax, Rey, you have so many options!" Rose assured her, "Plus, Ben's seen you all gross and sweaty in a dobok, so does it really matter?"

The girl had volunteered to help Rey pick her outfit for what Rey had declared  _not a date_  (because it was  _not_  a date), but they weren't having much luck. It was a surprisingly cold day for midsummer, so tank tops were out and now they were limited to warmer options.

Part of her had considered going in a t-shirt so she'd have an excuse to steal Ben's warmth, but Rey had a feeling that would be pushing her luck.

After all, it was Not A Date.

At least, that's what she kept telling herself. And it was true. It was just two friends going to see a movie for one friend's birthday.

Now if she could just convince her brain - which was commentating a litany of words to describe Ben, starting with "gorgeous" and getting progressively more embarrassing from there - maybe she'd actually get through this without melting into a pile of goo and feelings and hormones.

"I found it!"

Rey sat up immediately, noticing the deep green sweater Rose had pulled out of the closet.

"I haven't seen you wear this in forever," Rose commented. "Just throw it over some cute jeans and you'll be all set."

It was just a slouchy dark green sweater, soft to the touch, warm, and cozy. She'd even fallen asleep in it a couple of times, and she usually wore it with the sleeves rolled up to her forearms. It wasn't particularly flattering (rather than flattering it was more... _flattening_ ), and Rey frowned at that.

"That's not too boring?"

You realize you're going to a drive-in, right?" Rose rolled her eyes. "So, it'll be dark. Doesn't it make sense to pick something really comfortable instead of something cute?"

Rey thought about it for a minute, and nodded. "Yeah, that's probably true."

The girl considered Rey for a moment, and sat down on the bed next to her. "So is there a reason you're so nervous?" Rose quirked her lips up into a soft smile. "You know you can talk to me about it, right?"

"Yeah, I know," Rey blushed. "I just...okay, I know it's not a date, because, y'know, I'm seventeen and he's like, almost twenty-five, and obviously we're just friends, and I know it isn’t anything more than that-"

"But it kinda feels like one?" Rose offered.

"A little," Rey finished lamely.

"So, you're nervous about it because every time you hang out with him it feels more and more date-y and you're kind of embarrassed and shy about it, and you're not sure how to act?"

Rey turned her head to Rose, narrowing her eyes. "Did Luke teach you how to read minds?"

"Nah," Rose laughed, "I just know you. Plus, you've had a crush on Ben for like... _years_." She sighed. "Just give it another year. Or longer. Probably longer. I mean, don't be weird about it and do some sort of countdown to eighteen. We're going to be seniors, and I don't know," she shrugged, "maybe you'll want to date someone at school. You had fun with Liam, right?"

"Yeah," Rey nodded. "Didn't exactly end well…"

"Sure it did. You're friends now," Rose pointed out. "That seems like as good of an ending as a failed relationship can have. But what I'm trying to say is that, odds are, Ben's always going to be part of your life. Romantically or not. So, for now, why not just be seventeen? He's still going to be there in a year or two or three, and the longer you wait, the less weird the age difference is."

Rey sighed. "Sometimes I hate that you make so much sense."

"You're just impatient," Rose snorted.

"Can you blame me?" Rey asked dryly. "Rose, the guy has a six-pack. Or, eight-pack. Or whatever they're called. Hey, can people have twelve-packs?"

After a few seconds, she nearly jumped when Rose shrieked in her ear.

"Wait, you saw him  _shirtless?!"_

* * *

Before Ben arrived at 6:30, Rey closed herself in one of the diner's bathrooms to change into casual jeans and the sweater Rose had suggested. As much as she loved her diner uniform, she had to admit that what Rose had picked would be considerably more comfortable.

The butterflies in her stomach were still flying, and Rey took a deep breath, swapping skates for sneakers just before walking out into the dining area. She'd managed to calm down to somewhere around critical nuclear-failure level just as Ben walked in wearing a plain pair of well-fitting jeans and a long sleeved black sweater and poured emotional gasoline on the fire in her heart with just his presence.

Her nerves flared instantly, and for one perfect moment their eyes met and they smiled softly at each other. It was like a damn rom-com, and all of a sudden, Rey understood the appeal.

...and then she saw Luke, walking in right behind Ben.

"Uh...hi Luke," she said cautiously, "picking up dinner?"

Luke smiled broadly, and clapped his nephew on the back, "Nope! Ben invited me to the movie. Back to the Future - one of my favorites."

Rey blinked.

Okay, so it really,  _really_  wasn't a date.

Ben greeted her with tight hug that  _almost_  made up for the fact that he'd invited Luke. Almost. It wasn't that Rey wasn't happy to spend time with Luke...it's just that there'd probably be considerably less hugging, casual hand-holding, and heads resting on shoulders if he was there.

And that probably meant something, but Rey wasn't entirely sure what it was. Maybe if she was older she would have, but whether she liked it or not, she was seventeen, so she gave Luke a big smile, and said, "I'm glad you're coming with us - maybe you can stop Ben from stealing all the popcorn."

"Kid, I have bad news for you," Luke chuckled. "I like popcorn too."

* * *

As it turned out, Maz's recommendation had been excellent, despite the fact that Rey had to put up with most of her popcorn being stolen. Sure, Luke and Ben had spent half the movie arguing over which character was best (Ben claimed it was Marty, Luke said Doc Brown), and somehow Luke managed to sit himself directly between Ben and Rey (she was trying really hard not to be salty about that), but overall, it was a great birthday.

They all rode back in Ben's car, and Luke managed to go the whole ride without grabbing the handle over his window.

Ben parked in front of the Dojang and walked them to the building's door, hanging back a bit while Luke got out his keys. He said a quick, stiff goodnight to Luke, and took Rey's hand just long enough to indicate that he wanted her to stay outside for a bit.

Luke eyed them both a bit wearily before shaking his head and entering the building, leaving the door unlocked for Rey.

Once the door shut behind him, Ben said quietly, "I hope you didn't mind that I invited him. I know I probably should have checked with you first, but-" he paused, "I've kinda missed him. It's been weird, going from working and training with him every day to...this."

"It's okay," Rey nodded, "I didn't mind." She paused, and pursed her lips, saying cautiously, "I think Luke would like it if you did more with us. Y'know, he can cook pretty well now. Maybe you could come over for dinner. Maybe it could be a weekly thing."

Ben smiled softly. "Yeah, I might do that." Then he smirked, and added sarcastically, "Although that means I'd see you more, so I'm not sure…"

"Oh, yeah, it'd be terrible," Rey said dramatically, "Spending time with me would be just  _awful_."

Ben nodded, seriously, "It is. Being around you is barely tolerable. Sometimes I'm not even sure how I manage-"

"Okay," Rey interrupted, "so I know this started off as a joke, but-"

The rest of her sentence came out muffled, because Ben had taken a step forward and wrapped himself around her. Warmth radiated off him, and it felt like heaven on the unseasonably cold summer night.

"Definitely a joke, kid," he said quietly. He stayed there for a moment, happy to let Rey reciprocate the hug. After a minute, he said softly, "I should have said this a lot earlier, but I'm glad you came up to Luke that day - the day we came to your school. Kids never come up after demos like that. I don't know if it's because they're intimidated or what, but...you weren't."

He pulled her a bit tighter, as if he couldn't say what he wanted to say if she was looking him in the eyes. "And even though you were dealing with that asshole at home you were brave enough to just go right up to Luke and demand training. Not a lot of fourteen year olds could do that...and it feels like that was just yesterday, but now you're more than halfway to your Black Belt." He cleared his throat, "I don't know if Luke ever says it, but I hope you know how proud we both are."

Rey's breath caught in her throat, and she realized there was something wet on her face. Unbidden, a tear fell, undoubtedly landing on Ben's sweater.

"Sometimes I'm not sure who got the better end of all this," he said, "You, or us."

One of his hands came up to cradle the back of her head, holding it closely to his chest while he pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head. After a moment he chuckled, and said, "Sorry, I don't usually get sappy like this. I'm just...I'm really glad you're here. I hope you know that."

Ben pulled back just far enough to meet her eyes, and smiled. "You're always going to have a family here, you know that, right? I mean…" he shrugged, " _Dojang_  can literally translate to  _home_. This will always be a home for you, whenever you need it."

Damn Ben Solo and his nice arms and his words and the way he made her feel. She was not ready for this. She couldn't have been ready for this.

Rey blinked away a few tears and let out a sniffle. She'd never had a family before. At least, not one that stuck around.

"Yeah, Ben," she whispered. "I know. You know that's true for you, too, right?"

She expected him to frown, or maybe get mad. Suddenly get serious and broody. For one, painful minute she thought she'd ruined the evening.

But he just smiled fondly, and replied, "Yeah, kid. I know. It's a bit more complicated for me. But yeah...I know."

* * *

Sometimes, Rey wondered why she still did Taekwondo. It was only ever for a second or two - a brief moment of clarity that only happened once in a great while, when she wasn't completely insane. The rest of the time, she was content to kick, punch, do pushups, situps, headstands, suicide drills, poomse and whatever new hellish tortures Luke cooked up for her.

The end of her brown belt promotion was one of those moments.

Promotion itself had gone beautifully. She didn't forget any steps during her poomse, which was impressive since she now knew all eight color-belt poomse (and she could do every single one of them at the painstakingly slow pace Luke has a habit of demanding). She sparred without anyone becoming concussed, which she really shouldn't have considered an accomplishment. Her board shattered almost perfectly in half when her spinning hook kick hit its mark, and she even managed to answer Luke's random philosophical questions. She may not have answered them correctly, but his questions rarely had correct answers, so she didn't bother worrying.

Ben was there, sitting, smiling, and clapping (when appropriate) next to Finn and Rose, who looked a little intimidated, but happy for the company.

In a word, it was perfect.

...until Poe stalked over just after she'd tied on her new belt, and said, "Only one more promotion to go before the scary stuff kicks in!"

He probably meant well. Poe  _always_  meant well. He was always nice and encouraging, and he likely would have felt  _terrible_  if he knew he'd caused the miserable sinking-rock feeling in Rey's stomach.

Scary stuff?

Her brows shot up. "What do you mean?"

"Oh you know," he shrugged. "Senior stuff. Senior testing."

"I thought that was just a Black Belt thing," Rey replied. Logically, she knew she'd have to take part in whatever  _senior testing_  was at some point, but she was under the impression that it didn't kick in until Black Belt, and that was a nice, safe, year and a half away.

"Nope, starts as a Black Belt candidate. Or, bodan," he shrugged again, "same thing. Basically you start senior testing to prove you can keep up with the Black Belts."

Rey's eyes went wide, and all of the sudden Ben was next to her, patting her shoulder and saying, "Don't worry about it kid, you're going to be fine."

He turned to Poe, and eyebrow raised, "Usually it's discouraged to talk about senior testing with lower belts. It causes them to freak out a bit," he gestured to Rey, "like this one is doing now. She might hide it well but I'm pretty sure she's panicking on the inside. Am I right, kid?"

Rey hesitated. "No, not at all," she replied unconvincingly.

"Uh huh," Ben smirked. "Y'know, you're a terrible liar."

"Hey, I'm really sorry," Poe piped in. "I didn't mean to make you nervous. If it helps, I'm going to go through the senior testing with you." He elbowed Rey, "We'll be fine."

Ben nodded. "Luke won't let people test if he knows they can't handle it. If you get to do senior testing, it means he believes you're capable of passing."

Rey took a deep breath and nodded. "Sorry, I shouldn't worry so much. It's like six months away anyway."

Poe smiled broadly, seemingly relieved by her response, and gave a quick goodbye before running off to the changing rooms.

The panic she'd been feeling still hadn't completely calmed, but before she could take any longer to think about it, Ben came to stand in front of her, and reached out to hold the ends of her freshly tied brown belt. He pulled the ends taught, measuring them carefully against each other to see if she'd tied it evenly.

She had. Tying her belts evenly was a habit she'd formed after a nightmarish eight hour  _Master Luke Patience Lesson_.

Ben frowned. "Sorry about the color," he said after a moment. "Brown is a bit dull. Red's better."

"Brown?" Rey looked up at him, surprised. "Brown is a great color. I think it might be my favorite color. It's comforting, calming, it's like being home…" she paused, and smiled fondly at him. "It's a color you can just get  _lost_ in."

She hadn't taken her eyes off his, and she noticed that his eyebrows furrowed, and he gazed down at her a bit slack-jawed, with an affectionate, but exasperated expression.

Ben cleared his throat and replied awkwardly, "Right...well, I'm glad you like it, because you'll have to wear this belt for at least two promotions."

And  _oh_ , the belt was the last thing on her mind. She’d been thinking of his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: An invitation accepted, an invitation rejected, and a broken heart.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> AttackotDC: I feel like I could spend chapters talking about how gorgeous brown eyes are. That may or may not be because thebuildingsnotonfire has some pretty incredible brown eyes and I spend a lot of time looking at and thinking about them. I'm pretty biased. So...same, Rey. Same. Side note, I had so much fun writing the interaction between Ben and Liam. onfire has a comment on that scene, but I cackled while writing it. Sometimes teenagers are idiots.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: So, full disclosure, I'm not sure what restrictions there might be on a Taekwondo master owning an MMA gym. It's surprisingly hard to find that information, but in the end even if there are, just assume that Snoke is his usual Snoke self in this case and can somehow Snoke his way out of things. Yes, I just used his name as a verb. We'll see more of him as time goes on.
> 
> Lessee, Ben's scenes are all courtesy of AttackOfTheDarkCurses, with little bits of thirstiness on Rey's part a la me. (I apparently write teenage girl not terribly, per my wife). I did pitch Ben's reaction to Liam's statement, both as comedic value and something a little more insidious: what Ben did, with the not-threatening and the smiling? Not ok. Liam was a little shit, but man, if Luke ever found out about it…
> 
> That's the sort of thing that we're trying to get at here. Corruption can start or show with the little things sometimes. Ben is out of balance. Rey's going to learn that as time passes.
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 
[ onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/) 



	22. Brown Belt/Black Stripe, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the crazy delay on this chapter! We'd originally intended to have it up on 6/23, but obviously that didn't pan out. We're in London now with surprisingly reliable wifi, so Chapter 23 should go up within the next week.
> 
> Just a warning, we likely won't be able to respond to this chapter's comments right away. We will respond, but probably not within the hour.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


"Geez, you think you packed enough sunscreen, Paige?"

The tall brunette glared down at her little sister and put her hands on her hips, performing what Rey thought was an impressive impression of a mother scolding her child. "Rose, I don't care if you say you don't burn. Tans can be unhealthy too. You can either put the sunscreen on and reapply every hour, or you can go back to the car."

Rose sighed and gave her sister a playful, but dramatic eye roll. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, I love you too."

Rey bit back a laugh, and shook her head at the sisters. They'd just arrived at Parnassos State Park, a beach on the ocean, and Rey was already overwhelmed by crystal blue water and the green forested backdrop that split the rocky beach from the parking area. She climbed up onto one of the massive rocks to get a better view, and said in a hushed tone, "I've never seen this much green."

She missed the saddened look on Paige's face, and continued to stare in wonder as her gaze moved from the forest to the stunning blue of the waves as they rolled onto the sand.

"Found a good spot!"

Rey and Paige both looked over to see Rose waving from a location a bit closer to the water, where she'd laid out her towel and already started setting up a massive umbrella that had barely fit in their car.

Within twenty minutes or so, all three of them had comfortable spots claimed, set up, and they'd all cooled off in the freezing-cold salt-water. Paige and Rose must have been part polar-bear, because they both chose to stay in, splashing each other and diving under the water in an attempt to grab the other's feet.

Rey had different plans.

She'd gotten out of the water almost immediately and plopped down onto the bright orange towel she'd brought. It had been a split-second decision, but she'd decided to grab one of Luke's Taekwondo Philosophy books on the way out of the apartment that morning, and she was pouring over it in some sort of doomed-to-fail attempt to figure out what the hell she was messing up so badly.

So, maybe she wasn't exactly messing up, but she also wasn't doing an exceptional job. Luke hadn't said that, but Rey could feel it. She wasn't at 100%, and his training was kicking her ass, no matter how hard she tried. Logically, she knew the book she'd grabbed probably didn't have the answers she was looking for. Actually, at the moment it was mostly going on and on about the philosophy behind proper belt and dobok folding, but it was still worth a shot.

A quiet snort grabbed her attention, and a familiar voice said dryly, "Tell me this isn't your idea of fun."

Rey glanced up from the book only to be met by Phasma, wearing a flattering silvery one-piece that somehow managed to make her seem...almost intimidating.

"What are  _you_  doing here?" she asked, before realizing how rude she sounded.

Phasma just ignored her tone and shrugged, "I get days off too."

Rey's brow furrowed. "You're here alone?"

"Hux is working, plus, he burns to a crisp," the woman explained. "I would have invited Ben, but the last time he came to the beach he spent the whole time bitching about how irritating he finds sand. The guy can be a killjoy."

Suddenly Phasma spread a thick, fluffy white towel on the ground next to where Rey was laying. She sighed, and stretched out on her stomach next to Rey, while the girl was left to just blink in shock at the woman's casual butting-in.

"Well, hand it over, then. Lemme see what we're working with here."

Rey rolled her eyes and couldn't help her waspish tone when she said, "It's nothing you'd be interested in. It has nothing to do with fighting."

Phasma considered Rey for a moment, and her brows raised before she let out another snort. "I'd be a piss-poor Master if I only cared about fighting."

_What. Master?_

_What?_

"Uh...Master?" Rey asked cautiously. If Phasma was a fourth dan, Rey had made a fairly serious misstep, and now she was hoping she'd managed to misunderstand. Hell, if she was actually a practitioner, Rey was fairly sure that Luke would have her running in weighted clothing for days if he knew how she'd acted.

"Yep," the woman nodded. "As of a few months ago. I've been training since I was a kid." She giggled a bit at Rey's dropped jaw, and said reassuringly, "Oh don't worry, you're forgiven. I know you didn't know. I'm not even sure I ever mentioned doing Taekwondo when we talked. Anyway," she said, holding up the philosophy book, "what's this about? Don't get me wrong, I'd love it if even one of my students studied this stuff on their own, but…" she shrugged, "doesn't seem like a good beach-read."

Rey groaned, and dropped her forehead down onto the towel. "It's not. It keeps going on about the importance of folding properly."

"Yikes," Phasma said, in the tone of someone who knew exactly how boring it was, "So why're you reading it?"

"I…" Rey shook her head, and glanced over at her impromptu companion. She certainly didn't like the woman, but if she was being honest, she was having a harder and harder time justifying those feelings. Phasma seemed friendly. At the very least, she could probably at least give Rey some decent advice, from a Master's perspective. "I've hit a plateau, or something."

She sighed, and explained further, "I have some issues. Anger issues." Her face and soul burned to admit it, especially to the woman who was now consistently working with Ben. "So Luke has been giving me special training. Recently it's just seemed like it's not helpful. It feels like a waste of time, and I just end up more frustrated. It's making me a bit miserable."

"Hmm," Phasma nodded, pursing her lips. She put a hand under her chin, and gently drummed her fingers on her cheekbone. "Want some advice?"

Rey gave the woman a bit of a smile. "That would actually be great."

"Quit."

"What?" Rey jerked back as if she'd been slapped, and gaped at the blonde next to her. "Are you kidding?"

"Well," she shrugged, "you just told me this training feels like a waste of your time, and that it makes you frustrated and miserable. I guarantee that isn't the point of it, so if that's what you're taking away from it, you should probably quit. If that's really how you feel, you're wasting your own time, and Luke's."

"I can't quit!" Rey exclaimed, eyes wide, "I  _love_  Taekwondo! It's just these stupid one-on-one lessons."

"But those are a part of Taekwondo," Phasma explained. "Part of a martial art like Taekwondo is trusting your Master to teach you what you need to be taught. And Taekwondo isn't a la carte. You can't pick and choose what you like. Sure, I love sparring, but my poomse is pretty kickass too, because I know it's every bit as important as sparring. You've got to get it in your head that this is all about balance. Everything in Taekwondo comes back to balance."

"You're sounding a lot like Master Luke right now," Rey noted.

"Good, it means he's teaching you right."

"I didn't say that was a good thing…"

"You think I care?" Phasma asked dryly. "Look, you've got to know how to fight, and you've got to know when to not fight. You've got to know your poomse, but you also have to know how to teach it. You have to work hard, but you have to make time for fun too. You have to appreciate the martial aspect, but you have to remember that this is an art. Again, Rey, it's not a la carte. You take the good with the bad, and you practice the things you suck at until they become the things you're the best at."

She sighed, and smiled over at Rey, "And don't quit. I mean, do quit if you truly feel that it's a waste of your time, but obviously that's not really the case."

"No," Rey said softly, "it's not." She took a deep breath, and said the painful words, "You're right. I was just...venting. I've just been feeling like I'm awful at everything Luke asks of me."

"That's a good thing," Phasma chuckled, "it means he has faith that you can be good at those things eventually. If your training with him was easy, it would mean he doesn't take you seriously."

Rey blinked. "I never thought about it that way."

Phasma threw her head back and laughed. "Man, I don't miss being a teenager." She shook her head, and gave Rey a wide smile. "Look, Rey, I'd probably get frustrated too. Never trained with him personally - hell, we've barely exchanged words at tournaments, but Skywalker's a fantastic teacher, but he's also got a bit of an evil streak when it comes to training. If you ever want to vent, just let me know."

For what may have been the first time, Rey smiled at the woman.

* * *

Summer heat came upon everyone like starving coyotes on a freshly carved steak. It struck with a disturbing tenacity that was almost solid, and Rey found herself wishing for the days that the heater didn't work in Luke's building, because apparently it now did.  _Constantly_. If she closed her eyes she could hear it, whirring itself into the background noise of Luke's Dojang and apartment like some cheerful demon, spewing hot air and deliberately filling her room with near-suffocating torridity. Luke couldn't seem to figure out how to turn it off. He'd put in another call in to his old student but that was scheduled a few weeks later than Rey would have preferred.

Maz's diner had a pitiful little box A/C that was fighting a valiant, but futile battle against the sweltering summer. There was a cloister of clients in the seats closest to it, each one as miserable looking as the last. Rey's shirt and skirt felt like especially taut and sticky against her skin that day, and the constant readjustment she had to do to her skates did not help. Apparently one of the wheels was starting to stick, and Maz had run out of greasing oil.

So of course, wretched, sweating, and three seconds from cussing out this particularly ignorant customer named Fred who kept calling her his "Rey of Sunshine" ( _Ugh_ ), was when Han Solo decided to enter the bar.

"Hey kid," he greeted, taking a seat at the counter, "How's tricks?"

Rey glared at Fred, who retracted his reaching hand. "I'm fine," she grit out.

"You don't sound  _fine_."

How this man was married, Rey would never know. "I said I'm fine, didn't I?"

"Don't kid a kidder, kid."

A third voice jumped in. "Hey Sunshine, can you fill me up on this?"

Rey pivoted to see Fred grinning and raising an empty coffee mug. She rolled over to him and snatched it out of his hand, scowling down at his sunburnt, cheerful face. The man was a trucker who occasionally dropped in when he was in town, so Rey didn't usually have to deal with the likes of him that often.

"Decaf again?" she asked, suddenly the picture of graciousness. This would be the man's third cup. She had no idea what the point of drinking so much decaffeinated coffee was and she wasn't sure she wanted to find out.

"Sure thing, Rey o' Sunshine!"

"Fred, I swear, you call me your Rey of Sunshine  _one more time and I will-"_

An old leathery hand came down on Fred's shoulders. "Freddie, you weaseling, no-good, shifty, muck-dragging ol' snake! How've you been you stupid bastard?!"

"Han!" Fred - Freddie, that is, - said, his voice pitching several octaves as he turned around to look at the man. "Han! It's you!"

The fingers on Freddie's shoulder dug in to the much smaller man's shirt, prompting him to yelp. Han still had his leather jacket on and looked as unperturbed by the hellish temperature as ever. Freddie on the other hand, had a balding pate with a filmy sheen of sweat gathering, several stains in his shirt, and looked about as happy to there as a mouse in front of a cat.

"Of course it's me, buddy," Han said, ignoring Rey and reminding her exactly whose father he was, "Remember, when you dropped me off at the highway three states away with nothing but the clothes on my back and a case of dehydration?"

Freddie let out a sound that would have been much more appropriate coming from a five-year old girl. "I-I knew you w-would make it, ol' buddy ol' pal. I mean, y-you definitely came out for the b-better for it. You m-met Chewie then-"

"Where's. My. Money?" Han asked, punctuating each word with a vice-like squeeze of Freddie's shoulder.

"Uh, that is..."

Freddie looked from Han's hand to his face and then to Rey. "Ch-check please?"

"Don't worry about it," Han said, voice as smooth as butter, "I'll take care of it. Now...do me a favor and scram, eh? And wipe the seat before you do. Too much grease ain't good for the fabric."

The smaller man looked astonished at his good luck. He clambered to his feet, grabbed a napkin and hastily wiped the seat, and all but sprinted out the door.

"And don't forget my money!" Han called to his retreating back.

Everyone else was staring at them.

"What're you all looking at?" Han shouted, voice thundering behind a barrel chest. Suddenly, everyone else was starting at something else.

Han sat down in the seat - his usual seat, actually - and gave Rey a cocky grin. "You up for a break yet?"

Whatever bewilderment she was feeling rapidly shifted into annoyance. "You know, I don't just take a break whenever you come here for food. You're not  _that_  important."

"You're on break duty, girlie!" Maz called out from the kitchen.

Rey didn't let her reaction show on her face. Han however, was not so humble. His jowls shook with humor he chortled, a familiar sound on a familiar face that made her want to dunk it in liquid nitrogen.

Muttering unflattering things to herself, she sat down opposite Han. Let Maz bring the food out herself if she was going to be meddling in Rey's life.

Han rubbed his hands and unfolded the napkin in front to grab his utensils. "Let me ask ya' again: how are you?"

"Like I said. Fine. Who was that guy?"

There were poisonous snakes out there with less venom she'd put into those words. Han looked at her frazzled appearance and whistled. "I'd hate to see how you look when you're feeling crappy then."

"Stick around and you'll find out," Rey replied, "Better yet, how about I just go ahead and dump this coffee on you?"

He didn't look fazed at all. "Touchy today aren't we?"

"No really, I'm going to-" Rey realized what she was going to say and stopped herself. She put a hand on a booth seat to stabilize herself and just  _breathed_. After a few seconds of relative silence, she opened her eyes and saw the world anew. "...sorry."

"S'all good," Han muttered, his hazel gaze sharpened and critical, "Still haven't figured stuff out?"

"I'm still working with Luke on it," she mumbled, looking down. She still felt hot, miserable, and ten different kinds of disgusting, but she no longer wanted to rip Han's face off for showing up, or for his unsolicited help.

"Not talking about your temper, kid," Han said, as Maz came up and dropped a hastily made pair of plates in front of them. He waited until she was out of earshot before he leaned forward and asked in a hushed voice, "You figure out college stuff?"

"I tried," Rey angrily jabbed at her veggie burger with redirected annoyance. "No one's looking to hire a seventeen year old who won't sell her soul and sacrifice her first born to meet their stupid schedules. The one place that seemed promising turned out to just be a pretty sleazy convenience store, and they stopped returning my calls after I told them who I had for references."

"Who'd you have?"

"Well, Luke of course. Principal Holdo too, she's been keeping an eye on me since, well, everything. Maz – though I swear if you tell her that I will  _slap_ you. And…you."

Han's mouth actually dropped when he heard that. "Well, shit, kid, no wonder people haven't been calling you back."

"What? Why? What's wrong with what I said?"

"Let's just say I'm kinda'…infamous around town." Was it a trick of the light or was Han Solo actually being bashful now?

Rey groaned, pushed her food to the side, and put her head in her arms. "Of course you are."

"Hey, it's not my fault! I wasn't responsible for that building burning down, that was all Luke. I just…helped. Sort of. "

"You helped. With a burning building," Rey said flatly. "Helped with what? Flamethrowers?"

"…Molotov cocktails, actually."

" _What!?_ "

The older man shushed her, casting awkward glances all around. "It was a long time ago," he said, if that made it any better, "things were pretty bad around here, and me and some friends got mixed up in some pretty terrible stuff. Things happened."

"Han, me bumping a toe and spilling a coffee is  _things happened_. Breaking my arm and getting sent to the ER is  _things happened_ ," Rey took a breath to steal herself. "Burning down a building with Molotov cocktails and then proceeding to wave it off is not  _things happened._  It's  _Something-Very-Important-And-Needs-To-Be-Talked-About_."

"Y'know, you sound just like Luke when you say that," Han said, chuckling a little in spite of himself. "He used to get all indignant and surprised that shit kept going down around us. Always wanted to talk about it too."

"What happened?"

"He put a man's head through wall."

" _What!?_ "

"Keep it down will you?" He looked around to make sure people weren't staring, "Like I said, it was a long time ago."

"That's not possible. Nu-uh. No way," Rey crossed her arms and shook her head. "You're lying."

"Truth's often stranger than fiction, kid," Han looked away, a wistful and possibly haunted look in his eye. "We were different people then. We had to be."

"But putting someone through a wall? That just seems so…" She grasped for words that would fit the undeniable insanity of it into tangible form. "Impossible."

"Ask Luke about it sometime then," Han said, shrugging. It seemed that he was done with this conversation. "That guy's gotten into his own fair share of scrapes, you know. He's just smart enough to avoid them now."

She tried to imagine her host and teacher and near-pacifistic mentor doing something as uniquely dangerous as burning down a building, throwing people aside like dolls and striking men with debilitating strikes as they all failed to advance on him. There was a feeling of wrongness to the thought, one that made her ill, and Rey wiped the image clean from her brain.

Neither of them said anything for a few minutes. Han chugged at his beer and chomped on his food at his usual roadrunner pace, but Rey just picked at her food, sullen and roasting in the late August weather, her appetite nonexistent even though she'd just grabbed bag of baby carrots that morning for breakfast.

"So…college?"

She looked up from her continued admiration of the plate in front of her and saw Han staring at her.

"I still don't know," she reluctantly confessed. "I was thinking of going into Education but when I found out how much work I'd have to do with actual kids and not anyone older…and then finding out I'd probably eventually have to get a Master's too…"

"S'not easy deciding your life when you're just a kid yourself," Han agreed, his tone sounding contrary and commiserate in the same breath.

"I'm seventeen," Rey pointed out, a little peeved. "I'm hardly a kid."

"Kid, you can say you're not a kid, but you'll never  _not_  be a kid to me until you can honestly look at the people around you and think they, too, are kids."

Rey was going to say something to retaliate to this insulting concept of her age and maturity, until Han opened his mouth again.

"But that's ok, too," he said, winking and wiping his mouth with his napkin. "Like I said, it'll happen eventually."

"I thought I needed to be young?"

"There's a difference between being young and being a kid, firecracker."

"I  _will_ brew a fresh pot just for your face if you keep at it."

"Alright, alright!" Han held up his hands, laughing, and Rey was struck with a severe and ominous sense of déjà vu, "I know when I'm beat. Damn women are all crazy."

"I'll be sure to tell Leia that, next time I see her, flyboy," Maz said from the kitchen. The customers had all started filtering out somewhere between Rey's first and second outbursts. "I think she'd love to hear how your opinions haven't changed in the thirty odd years you've been married."

"I'm surrounded by traitors," Han grumbled to himself, before clearing his throat. "Speaking of Leia, I'm supposed to invite you."

It took Rey a moment to catch up to the change in topic. "Huh?"

"Our cookout? The one we're having for my old friend from out of town?" he shook his head in wonder. "C'mon kid, I told you about this months ago."

"Oh. Oh!" The memory flickered to prominence in her brain. She'd been aching and agonizing over college and expenses and even the one-on-one training with Luke that she'd forgotten Han had ever mentioned something so humdrum as a cookout. She had this mental image of him of a daredevil who only dropped in once in a awhile, and had completely forgotten he lived an urbane and probably normal life with Leia, who was about as opposite to Han's persona as one could get. "What about it?"

"You're invited."

It was probably a testament to her past that she hadn't even thought that was possible. "But…why?"

Han gave her a look that could only have been directed otherwise at a handicapped starfish. "Because, kid, we want you there. Is that so hard to believe? Don't worry about being out of place, Luke's coming too. You two can just stand in the corner and do your mystery martial art thing together."

"You make him sound like a weirdo. He's not that bad."

"Hmmm," Han grunted, "He still a Luddite?"

Rey winced and thought of the overweight LCD television just waiting to hit the floor and the man's beaten to shit-and-back cell phone. "Yes."

"He still sit in front of mirrors and just stare at himself without moving for hours?"

"Yes."

"See? Weird."

* * *

As a proud owner of a smartphone (which was mostly filled to the brim with music), Rey had to admit that she was a typical, constantly-texting teenager. She had individual chats with each of her friends (specifically, one with Liam that included a  _lot_ of apologizing for Ben's behavior at the diner), and a group chat (obviously), plus an ongoing conversation with Luke that pretty much consisted of "Kid, where are you?" and "Turn the music down before I sell your speakers."

Strangely enough, she never really texted Ben. Maybe it was because she'd rather see him in person, or maybe it was because every time she tried she found herself second guessing the text. Did he use emoticons? Was he one of those people who used perfect spelling and punctuation? Did he stick to one-word texts? Was he one of those people who got a text and then called the sender instead of texting back? It shouldn't have mattered, but for some reason Rey just hadn't worked up the nerve to text him.

But Han had asked her to invite Ben to the cookout, and she hadn't seen Ben in a few days. The cookout was just two days away, and texting or calling him was pretty much her only option. At least that would be a lot less weird than showing up at his apartment.

_Oh hey Ben, just in the area. Sorry for stopping by, but would you mind coming to a cookout with your parents, who you seem to hate? Pretty please?_

Rey whined and typed out a quick text, then hit send before she had a chance to reconsider.

**R: Cookout at your parent's place on Saturday, Luke and I are going. Can you come?**

He was going to call and start yelling. She just knew it. Rey had specifically avoided mention his parents for  _so_  long and now he was going to-

B: You're joking, right?

**R: No...**

B: I'm busy.

Rey took a deep breath and gave it one more chance.

**R: Please? It would mean a lot. You don't have to socialize. Just come with us.**

She waited, staring at her phone for a few minutes waiting for his response. Maybe he'd broken his phone against a wall. That would be  _very_  Ben Solo.

After another couple of minutes Rey's phone started ringing. She took a deep breath, and answered, laughing nervously, "Uh...hey Ben."

His voice was flat as he immediately said, "I'm not going."

He hung up the phone.

Rey's mouth instantly turned into a scowl. She quickly dialed back and upon hearing him pick up, she instantly gave him a piece of her mind. "Ben, it's a fucking cookout. You can handle a cookout. It's not like anyone's going to force you to talk to them."

"Kid, you don't get it-"

She could tell he was going to hang up again, so she interrupted him before he could finish.

"No Ben,  _you_ don't get it. And stop calling me  _kid_ ," she snapped. "You're the one who's being a child. Your parents love you - would it really kill you to spend some time with them? Just show up, eat some food, make some small talk, and leave. How hard is that?"

She'd crossed a line, but she wasn't entirely sure when. She only knew it when she heard Ben take a few measured, deep breaths before responding calmly, "Rey, I'm going to hang up before we get mad at each other. I don't want to hear anymore about this. I'm glad you have some parental figures in your life, but my experience with them was drastically different, and you have no right to assume that you know everything about it. Have a good time this weekend."

Rey heard a click, and dropped face-down onto the daybed, letting her pillow muffle the frustrated groan she let out.

* * *

Han and Leia's home was in a surprisingly nice area of town which, no matter how much Han denied it, was definitely was a suburb. The houses were clean and had what Rey imagined to be  _curb appeal_ , with verdant lawns, trimmed bushes, surprisingly non-tacky ornamentations, and the feeling you could walk down the street at night without needing to hold your car keys between your fingers.

Driving lessons with Han had finished with an aplomb earlier in the summer, and with nary a scratch on the Falcon in sight. At least, not one caused by her. When Luke and she pulled up into the paved driveway of the austere Victorian-looking house, it seemed that in the course of a the three weeks since Rey's last drive in it, the crimson relic had amassed a series of battle scars in the forms of scratches and dents.

Personally, Rey thought it looked much better this way.

"How that man is still alive amazes me everyday," Luke muttered, shaking his head in disbelief as they both took in the Falcon's new coat of dings and ruined paint job. "I thought he'd changed when he was teaching you, but apparently I was wrong."

"He said he didn't want to make it harder on me if I got pulled over in a beat-up car," Rey offered. "Said it would make things harder if I had."

Luke barked out a warm laugh. "That's how you know he likes you, Rey. Last time I got in a car with him the bumper fell off in an impromptu streetrace. The maniac just gunned the accelerator  _harder_."

"You really need to tell me about these adventures you two had," she commented, grinning up at him.

"Not in your lifetime, kid."

They pressed the doorbell and knocked with the handle, a regal bronze bear's head, frozen mid-roar. They didn't have to wait long, as a few seconds after Leia opened the door. Upon seeing how she was elegantly dressed, Rey swallowed and suddenly realized her peach T-shirt and jeans probably weren't appropriate for this party. Leia wore a gorgeous silky navy colored top, and she'd done something to her cheeks to give herself a warmer, yet more regal look.

"Luke, Rey! Come in, come in," she said, inviting them. They walked in and exchanged hugs and greetings. "Han's out in the back. The lazy bum's been using a fireplace poker to cook things while he's sitting down."

Luke's brow raised in questioning. "How's that working out for him?"

"Terribly," Leia said instantly. "He's dropped three hot dogs already, but he keeps trying. At least Chewie seems to be enjoying it. I swear, that dog takes after Han far too much."

A far-off fragment of a memory came to Rey. "Wait, Chewie's a dog? But I thought Maz said Chewie was her..." she trailed off, uncomfortable with finishing the sentence.

"Blame Han," Leia said in the tone of someone used to repeating those same words after a lifetime of marriage. "Chewbacca's an old friend of his, and an old work partner of Han's. But after Han stopped traveling and Chewbacca kept going, instead of getting used to  _not_  having a big hairy thing around, Han went out and got a Tibetan Mastiff and named it after him."

"It makes reunions a bit confusing," Luke supplied, grinning at Rey's confusion. "But you can usually tell who's being referred to based on how ticked off the person speaking sounds."

"Unless Han's involved," Leia snarked as she started steering them out towards the back. "Then you might as well assume they're all being idiots. And don't go nodding your head like that, Luke, or should I remind you of your twenty-first birthday?"

Luke started coughing uncontrollably and slipped away from the two of them, citing a need for water. Far away from his sister and a very amused Rey.

"Heh, works every time." Leia put her hands on her hips before turning to Rey and motioning her into what Rey's English Lit class readings told her was a parlor, "Now, why don't we-"

"Madam Organa!" cried a fragile sounding voice. "Madam Organa, you simply  _must_  come and put Master Solo to sorts! He's- oh what is it now you foolish thing!?"

A tall man appeared in the doorway. He was thin and wiry, with a thin wisp of blonde hair that looked like it came off a stressed broom. His frame was lithe and elongated, and he was carrying a stack of papers that probably weighed about as much as he did soaking wet. He wore a nice ivory button-up with dark ash-colored business pants. He'd have looked the picture of immaculateness, if it weren't for the little chubby tabby cat clawing at his calf, trying to drag the man backwards.

"Threepio," Leia greeted, and Rey was amazed to see how expertly she'd wiped the amusement from her face. "What's going on?"

"Your cat, Madam," the man said, sounding strained even as the comparatively tiny creature visibly flexed its claws into the man's flesh. "He seems to want something from me."

Leia's flat stare would have pacified a mob, "Artoo's a cat. Of course he does. I'm talking about Han."

"Oh." Rey couldn't tell if the man was relieved or dismayed to have had the matter of the cat dismissed so easily, "He's started talking about- well, Master Lando started challenging Han to foolish things and now he's talking about that trip you two took to Bora Bora-"

The older woman's voice came out like with whip-like crack, "Threepio you stop that man's mouth, otherwise I'm going to kill him myself."

"I- Yes ma'am," the butler - he  _had_  to be butler, right? - stammered, before trooping on and waving the stack of papers in his hand. "There's also the matter of these papers regarding the proposed tax you need to look over. Councilman Dover is asking for a sit-down meeting sometime soon, and I'm afraid he's being very forward. Why just the other day I received this particularly scathing-"

"Threepio!" Leia yelled, startling the rambling automaton out of his trance, "Husband. Story. Dead by my hand. Get to it!"

"Y-yes ma'am!" With an awkward half-salute half-bow, the man scuttled away muttering unflattering things about the little furball still attached to his pant leg.

"That man has the best bureaucratic mind I've ever met," Leia shook her head, "But he's got the worst case of waffle syndrome I've ever seen."

Rey searched her ever-expanding lexicon and came up with nothing. "Waffle syndrome?" she asked.

"Let's just say that he's once asked me for help on deciding which bottle of water to purchase. They were the same brand: they just had a different bottle shape."

"Wait, are you working today?" Rey blurted out.

Leia just waved it off. "I've been advising some folks in town about some things for the past couple of years. Threepio is actually a good man, once you get past his stuffy exterior, and he's been a useful assistant for," she looked thoughtful for a moment, "going on thirty years now?"

That...seemed like an absurd amount of time.

"I know, I know," Leia shrugged, "but I'm not going to begrudge a friend his quirks. It gets a little uncomfortable when he calls us 'Madam' or 'Master' but we make do. Now come, I've got business with you."

They sat on a pair of seats set out in the parlor. They were rouge plush and soft, fabric skin on an oaken sofa frame, and if Rey had been a little more self-aware, she probably wouldn't have plonked herself down with such capriciousness. She was still a little in shock that people actually had things like parlor rooms to begin with.

"How've things been?" Leia started. She sat perfectly straight, her back upright and her head tilted  _just_ right so as to seem like an offhand comment. It was a practiced question, with a practiced face, and Rey immediately knew something was up, because the last time someone talked to her like that she found out she was going to stay with a man who preferred his dinner be administered via handles of whiskey.

"Is everything ok?" Rey answered instead.

"Right to the point, huh? I can respect that." The grey-haired woman seemed to think her words carefully before saying, "How much do you know about the situation with Unkar Plutt?"

Her heart sank. This was is it. She was going to have to head back now. All her months with Luke had been great but, of course, it would have to come to an end.

She looked down at her knees, where here hands lay propped, tightened to the point of pain. "Not much. Luke's offered to talk to me about it but...not much."

Leia nodded, and didn't look surprised to hear such. "In a little under a year, you'll be considered an adult. Now, ideally, as a ward of the state you'd be receiving counseling and meeting with a social worker regarding your plans and future aspirations."

"I met a guy, once or twice," Rey said, the words tasting like sludge in her mouth. "He'd look at me for thirty seconds, check my face, arms and legs for any bruising and then leave."

"Hmph, considering what we found out about Unkar's inside guy that sounds about right."

Rey's eyes widened. "Wait, you're still investigating? I thought you'd dropped it after..."

"After we found evidence of abuse and got you the hell out of that house?" Leia finished. There was a dark look in her eye that would not have been out of place on Ben's face, "Rey, sweetheart, what we did...was not strictly in line with the law. We've been lucky with Unkar not kicking up a fuss, especially once he found out who you've been training under, but things might change once he loses the income afforded to him when you turn eighteen. Especially when he finds that having a new kid or set of kids assigned to his care turns out to be more difficult than anticipated."

"So, what do you need from me?" Rey said, heart pounding. She'd thought Unkar to be in her past by this point, but she had completely forgotten about the money he was receiving and misappropriating.

"I've been reaching out to people in the system: supervisors, auditors. People who can help in this case. They've been keeping things on the downlow, as a favor, and afterwards, if necessary, they'll be the ones to help with the paperwork that would make your stay with Luke legal.

"They probably will want to talk to you themselves though."

Rey never knew relief could come so quickly nor taste so reinvigorating. "That's it? I just have to talk?"

Leia reached out and put a hand on Rey's knee. "It may sound like nothing now but Rey...you're going to have to talk about how he hit you. And how he threatened you. Luke told me of the conditions you stayed in. That kind of thing isn't easy."

"It's all I ever knew," Rey explained, looking down at her hands, feeling awkward and ashamed for not knowing any better, "I thought it was normal up until the third grade, when I heard other kids in my class talking about their rooms."

"And how long had you been staying with Plutt at that point?" Leia asked, her eyes wide.

"I wasn't," Rey said, and looked away, "I'd been staying with another home, a lady called Sheiza. She got sick and then I met Plutt when I was in 7th grade."

Leia's response was to tighten her grip on Rey's knee. "And that might be why people have been handling your case so poorly, and why Plutt's been getting away with it. Kids over the age of twelve are often forgotten or given lower priority by the system, and that would put you right around the cutoff point, and with Plutt having that social worker who owed him a favor or two..."

Rey gave her a weak grin, and hoped her thumping heart would stop those traitorous quivers in her chest, "It's alright, it's over for now."

"It never should have happened to begin with," Leia argued gently. "I'm truly  _truly_  sorry, on behalf of everyone who's ever let you down."

She wanted to say that it was ok, to reassure the woman that it was alright, that she'd come out all the stronger for the experience because that's what you're supposed to say in these situations, right? But suddenly her eyes were watering and her throat was getting choked up and her skin felt tight and hot and  _dammit_  today was supposed to be a happy day so why was she crying?

Leia wrapped her arms around her then, and Rey learned that Ben took after his mother in the hugging department. The woman was svelte and shorter than even her, but she had a presence that defied physical size and seemed to just fill whatever room she was in, and to have that presence envelope her was soothing in a way that made Rey wonder if this is what having a mom felt like.

(Ben was an idiot for skipping out on this.)

They stayed like that for a few minutes, Rey hiding sniffles and Leia saying nothing, which was the best thing she could do. They separated, Leia silently offering her a handkerchief procured from who knows where, and - both having come to the silent conclusion of this conversation being over and to be picked up at a later date - went into the kitchen and then out into the backyard.

A dozen people lay milling about on the grass. Han and Leia had an enormous sea of green for a backyard, with an eight-foot tall wooden fence enclosing it on all sides. Along the edges of one wall were a trio of trees full of oranges and waiting to be plucked. The other side held several tables full of food, various hors d'oeuvres and the makings for burgers.

Maz was there, holding on to a bear of a man who stood a good head higher than even Han, who was offering him a beer and no doubt fast-talking his mouth off about some ridiculous shenanigan or other. Maz was rolling her eyes and giving Han the stink eye, and Han had the look of a man walking to the gallows as he kept nervously gesturing to Maz, himself, and then towards Luke, all while the giant man - who sported the kind of beard that made Rey think of lumberjack and wildmen - had his arms crossed and looked down his nose at the host of the party. A massive mess of fur and muscle that could only be Chewie lay at their feet, looking like it was trying out to be the happiest and laziest dog ever.

Luke was off to the side, amicably chatting with a half-dozen group of respectable looking people, and so Rey had to conclude those were Leia's guests.

Someone else was at the grill - a well built man with a blue polo and faded dark skin, and every so often he'd turn and hand a plate to one of the two older women who seemed to have a perpetual blush that only deepened whenever the man opened his mouth. Then, they'd each run off and deposit a plate in another guests hands and scurry back to the grill, a not-so-hidden grin on their faces.

One of these women came up to Rey, plate in hand, winked at her, said, "Here you go pumkin" and then all but forced her to accept the plate with the charred burger on it.

Leia had vanished. Off to deal with another seeming emergency at the supplication of Threepio.

Rey frantically looked around at the party, saw that Luke was roaring up to one of his lecture poses, and decided that she'd take her chance with the people she knew over the philosophy seminar she could get any time.

Han was in a headlock by the time she arrived there, but it was nothing dangerous. The large man had his arm wrapped around Han's neck and kept rubbing his knuckles in to his hair, much to his very vocal frustration.

"Oh come on, Chewie!" Han was shouting, "I just got it cut this weekend, you overgrown carpet!"

"You set a truck on fire, Han," the larger man said placidly. He didn't look like he was exerting even an ounce of effort. "You know I asked you to call me if you were going to get into something stupid. I at least wanted to take pictures."

"Like hell you did," Han said, finally loosening the also-named Chewie's grip and wrenching himself out. His usual perfectly combed hairstyle looked mussed and frazzled. "You just wanted to scavenge it for parts."

Maz chose that moment to speak up, "Girlie, I see you've lost your senses and decided to come over to this side instead of staying with the more respectable folk."

Rey shrugged, mimicking bravado she definitely did not feel. "If I wanted a lecture I could just ask Luke about some history thing on the way home, I figured I'd stick with the normal people instead."

Chewie turned to her then and then playfully growled to Han, "What manner of nonsense have you been filling this kid's head with, Han? She thinks you're normal."

Drawing himself up, Han gave Chewie the finger, and said, "I'll have you know I've been a model citizen these past few years. Just ask Maz, she'll tell you."

"You threatened one of my customers so bad he skimmed my sign driving out of the parking lot."

"Dammit woman why don't you-" Han took a breath and glared at Maz, who was giving him an evil smile that Rey was intimately familiar with. "Bah, be that way. Alright, Rey, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca, Rey. She's the crazy kid I told you about."

Chewbacca raised a brow as he looked her up and down. Rey felt like how a twig must when confronted with a bear that could just casually brush it aside. "You're kinda' scrawny, aren't ya? What're you feeding this girl, Han?"

"She eats like a rabbit, you ol' grizzly," Han shot back, sounding tired and amused at the same time, "and don't forget you have a skewed sense of what's a good meal yourself."

"Nonsense." Chewbacca smacked his gut with an open hand, "You just can't appreciate anything other than burgers and beer. Speaking of, I need to grab some of what Lando's making before he burns it all wrong again."

Chewbacca and Maz left, each of them talking animatedly to each other, neither aware of the comedic discrepancy in their respective sizes. Rey imagined it wouldn't have looked out of place to see Chewbacca just hold Maz on his shoulders to make way through a crowd.

"Sorry about him," Han muttered, sitting down in his wire frame chair with a tired sigh. "He never keeps his thoughts to himself and has a bad habit of just ticking me off."

Rey did  _not_  smile. Really. She didn't. "Sounds like you're pretty good friends then."

"I never could have asked for a better one," Han agreed, inclining his head. He then looked down at the massive monster that Rey supposed technically qualified as a dog lying at his feet. "Or this one for that matter. Named him after Chewie over there. Thought it was going to annoy him." Han shook his head. "He just said 'At least one of me is going to keep an eye on you when I'm out of town.' Damn fool can't even let me mock him easily."

"He sounds pretty great actually," Rey smiled nervously, noticing the build up in the conversation for what it was.

"Leia talk to you about things?" Han asked.

"I- yeah."

A silent moment passed.

Then, Han cut through the lull with a sledgehammer voice. "It's a little overwhelming, having people give a shit about you, huh?"

Rey jerked uncomfortably in place. Eventually, when she was aware that Chewie and Maz weren't coming back just yet she nodded.

"Kid, I-" Han grimaced and looked to the side, "I'm a street rat myself. I know it ain't the same as the shit you've been through but...you'll fit in with these guys."

What was it with this family and making her cry!? Rey sniffled and swallowed and did her damndest not to let the tears flow or the hiccups come.

Han's hand came out and patted her on the head. "You're a good kid, firecracker."

He paused, waiting to see if she'd fire back. Then, one second turned to five and then into ten, and his face split with the toothiest grin she'd ever seen on his face. "Knew I'd getcha' one day!" he chuckled, sounding ten years younger in his laugh alone. "Han Solo always wins eventually."

She didn't know what to do, so Rey punched him in the arm.

"Ow!" he said, still laughing, "it ain't nice to hit old people, firecracker."

"It also isn't nice to make girls cry, asshole," Rey retorted, voice still a little watery but the tide of emotions finally easing off. She could feel the smile on her face. It hurt and felt good at the same time.

"Just go get me a burger," Han grumbled, closing his eyes in his chair and leaning back. "And tell Lando not to burn it like he does everything."

Rey turned to leave, but before she did she looked at Han, sitting peacefully in his chair, and whispered, "Thanks. For everything."

"Dunno' what you're talking about," Han replied, a little smirk still gracing his wrinkled face. His eyes were still closed. "I'm just doing what I always do: flying by the seat of my pants."

Shaking her head, Rey walked away and approached the man she could only assume was called Lando, who had somehow amassed a line of people in demand of non-burnt food. She got in line behind Threepio, who had somehow ridden himself of Artoo, though the little tabby cat was perched upon a window ledge, tracking the fidgety man's movement incessantly.

Two minutes later she heard Chewie the dog's whining. Two minutes after that she realized that a hush had fallen among the backyard.

Rey looked back. Luke was kneeling, by Han's side, shaking him. Han's eyes were closed and he had a peaceful expression on his face. In his hands was a piece of paper the size of a wallet photo.

Luke shook some more. Chewie’s whines had become muffled howls.

He didn't wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Comforting, unexpected gifts, and metaphors.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> Attack: Sorry things worked out this way, but this was our plan from the beginning. Originally I was only going to have Han in a few scenes, but onfire wanted to build out his relationship with Rey more. I think it worked very well in the story, but if you're extra heart-broken, blame him.
> 
> Again, our replies will be a bit slow. I think this is a terribly inconvenient time for us to essentially "go dark" but there's not a whole lot I can do about it.
> 
> A final note - We've had a few people on Tumblr guess this was going to happen and I even had one lovely reader tell me they'd stop reading if it did. I can honestly say that 99% of the readers and commenters on this fic have been a delight to interact with (genuinely, and I don't say that lightly because I'm not a social person), but for those one or two anons who have left us some fairly negative messages, I'd just like to say: This fic was not written for you. This fic was written because onfire and I had an idea and we decided to flesh it out and share it with the internet, for better or worse. We're incredibly happy it's been so well received, but if anyone doesn't like it, that's absolutely fine, and it's not offensive.
> 
> Not liking a fic is not offensive. Stopping a fic halfway through because you don't like an event is not offensive. Messaging the writers of that fic rude notes about how you're going to stop reading if a character dies...eh. That's pretty rude, and honestly if that's how a reader chooses to respond, we'd prefer they stop reading anyway.
> 
> So for the 99% of you who are respectful, I'd just like to thank you again. We truly appreciate you and it's been a pleasure sharing our writing with you.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: Han is dead. That was hard to write honestly. We always knew Han's fate was going to be this when we set out. This event is the second of our biggest WHAM chapters, and one I'm happy to have behind us because now is when Ben is confronted with something he was not ready for. It's interesting because here we'll get to see Ben's start of darkness, whereas in the movie Han's death was, at least I believe, where Kylo Ren began his first steps back to the light.
> 
> I'm braindead. I'll happily answer any questions y'all have, provided it's not spoiler-y, but I'm gonna' go crash on our bed now. Thank you everyone who was patient enough to wait for this chapter!
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 
[ onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/) 



	23. Brown Belt/Black Stripe, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are posting while in another country...mostly because we just couldn't bring ourselves to leave you without an update after what we just did in Chapter 22. Again, we'll probably be a lot slower responding to comments, but we'll definitely respond!
> 
> And a big thanks for all the comments! We really, really appreciate them even if we aren't able to respond (wifi has been spotty, at best).
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


Luke tried to reach out to her three hours after they got back to the apartment. When he knocked on the door, he'd made sure to keep his voice gentle.

"Rey, kid, can I come in?"

She hadn't answered.

Half an hour later he tried again.

"Rey, your friends are here. Can I let them in?"

Rey supposed she should have felt guilty about ignoring them but anything other than the whorling miasma of  _Why him?_  in her heart seemed to drain out of her. They'd left when she finally told them, through the door, "Not now, please."

The next morning, after a night of flightless dreams and ramshackle nightmares, Luke knocked one last time on the door.

"Kid, if you don't open the door I'm coming in."

Rey tried to remember how long he'd been trying to talk to her. She knew that they hadn't spoken much, but, it felt like a decade since she'd last heard him talk without that heavy cord of grief lining his speech.

She was vaguely aware of croaking something vaguely affirmative. It was hard to focus, and her mouth felt too stiff and numb as she tasted the sound.

Finally, the door creaked open. "Rey?" Luke asked cautiously, moving slowly, as if he was approaching a wounded animal.  _I suppose I am,_  Rey mused, remembering a particularly scathing comment he'd made so long ago. Luke had been practically a stranger then.

So had Han.

"Kid, how're you feeling?"

Not this. Not now.

Her eyes met Luke's, and she saw that the previous calm sky-blue of her guardian's eyes were now rimmed red. There were bags as deep as pits under his eyes. Whatever tenuous control Rey had snapped clean at the sight and she felt the beginning of tears prick at her eyes.

"Oh, Rey," he said softly, taking a seat on the bed next to her. "Come here, kid." He helped pull her up to a sitting position, and wrapped her in a warm hug. The act just triggered the rest of her tears, and she found herself sobbing, grabbing onto his clothes and clenching them for all she was worth.

It felt good. Relieving even, to just forget everything and cry. She cried for Han, who the doctors suspected had suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm, and she cried for Leia, who'd had to stay the night in the same house where she'd lost her husband. She thought of Luke, Chewbacca, and even Maz, and she ached and mourned for them. But above all, she cried for herself, because fuck. This. Shit. It was bizarre, mourning a man she'd known well for no more than a year. She'd even tried using that logic to somehow magically cure the hole in her chest, but that made it worse.

At the same time, she felt guilty. Nothing about this was supposed to be good.  _Nothing_. Han was dead, holding a picture of a young Ben (and what a gut-wrench that had been to find out), and Rey wondered if he'd somehow known it was going to happen. But no, it had come on to him swiftly and quietly, and no one, not even their dog Chewie, had realized what had happened until it was already too late.

She didn't know how long they stayed like that, but Luke didn't let go, an action that Rey didn't miss. "I'll miss him too," he admitted, his voice hoarse and thick with emotion, "I've known...knew him since I was your age."

Something interminably precious seemed to leave him then, and Rey gripped at his shirt some more.

"I just-" Rey sniffled and hiccuped, "I can't believe he's gone."

"No one's ever really gone," Luke said quietly. "And he never will be. Not as long as we remember him."

Everything was quiet for a few minutes as Rey continued to cry. She had long stopped caring about getting Luke's sweatshirt damp with her tears.

Eventually, he cleared his throat, and said, "Leia's having a wake tomorrow afternoon. I'm heading over today to help her get everything organized. It's not exactly a funeral...I'm not sure Han would have wanted one anyway. It's more of a remembrance, I guess. There'll be food, music...probably a lot people of drinking, and lots of stories." He paused, and finally, in as tentative a voice as she could remember, said, "I know this is a hard time for you kid, but I was hoping I could ask you for a favor."

Rey sat up and wiped her eyes, realizing they were probably puffy and red. Not that it mattered. "Do you and Leia need help with the wake?"

"No, not exactly." Luke swallowed hard, meeting her stare. There was something old and tired and heartbroken there, hidden, but unafraid all the same. "I tried calling Ben...I told him about Han, but he hung up. Now he won't answer my calls, or Leia's."

She glanced at him, as if confused, and then the full meaning of what he'd said hit her, and a fresh new lance of pain blossomed inside her chest. "Oh no.  _Ben_."

"Yeah," Luke nodded, seeing her reaction, "I haven't been able to reach him. He's not picking up his phone anymore. I reached out to Phasma earlier, and she said he didn't show up to work this morning." Luke paused here, as if wondering if he should keep going. "I told her what happened. Not everything, but enough for her and Hux to get the picture. They've been knocking on his door for hours now. Hux just called and said that you might have a better chance."

Her own stomach lurched at the thought of seeing Ben again, especially after their last phone conversation. She thought of him, alone and willfully so, in a tiny apartment, and who'd-

An image of Han holding Ben in a lock that would have broken grown men, and Ben fighting, fighting, fighting to break free, letting out a scream of frustration that reached down her throat and  _choked_.

... _oh Ben._

She met Luke's stare and knew he was probably thinking the same thing. She nodded.

She pulled a hoodie from her closet, pulled it over her head, and rushed out the door, dropping into a sprint once she reached the street.

The day was overcast, with flashes of sun peeking through the cloud barrier. Slightly cool air greeted her as she put down step after step, like a machine, on the pavement. A gust of wind strew her hair about as she crossed the street in Ben's direction.

Perfect driving weather, Han would have said.

* * *

Leaves had started falling, and the sidewalk and street were littered in beautiful orange, yellow, and red hues that might have seemed picturesque on a normal day when the world wasn't busy being a cutthroat and careless place.

The crisp breeze stirred the piles of leaves, and normally Rey would have spent more time watching the stunning colors that characterized her favorite season.

But she had more important things to do.

Rey made it to his apartment in record time and cursed when she realized she needed to be buzzed in. It took her two seconds to decide to press her hand against the entire panel, buzzing every apartment until someone in the building let her in, no questions asked. If someone wanted to complain she'd gladly throw them down the stairs if they got in her way.

She heard one or both of them pounding against the door when she hit the second floor. Then, there was a small break in the knocking as Hux demanded, "Ben, just open the damn door!"

Rey flew up the last staircase two steps at a time and found both of them crowding in front of Ben's door.

Phasma wore a grim look that relaxed only slightly as she saw Rey come up the stairwell. "Glad you're here," she said, cutting to the chase, "He stopped talking to us hours ago. We just want to check on him. Make sure he doesn't end up drinking himself to death or something."

Hux hadn't even turned to look at her. Rey watched as he knocked against the surface of the door -  _hard_  - before pressing his face close, all but yelling, "Ben, I swear if you don't open this door up, I will set it on fire!"

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Phasma muttered to Rey, "Hux doesn't give a crap about most people, but Benji's the one guy I think he actually has a bromance with."

"Phasma, now is  _not_  the time!"

Rey ignored both of them, and instead walked to stand solemnly in front of the apartment door, Hux moving out of the way after throwing his hands up. She took a deep breath to calm her rocket-powered heartbeat and knocked gently. "Ben?" she called softly, "It's me, can I come in? Please?"

All three of them fell silent, breaths hitched. She wasn't sure if she'd said it loud enough, and was just about to knock again when the door creaked open, leaving just a slit between it and the frame.

Step one complete.

_Now what?_

She was just about to look at Phasma and Hux to see if they had any ideas on how to proceed (Should they go in? Knock? Call Luke?), when the door opened fully. Before Rey could comment on his disheveled hair or the deep circles under his eyes, she was enveloped in Ben's arms.

Under normal circumstances, Rey's mind would have been flipping through a cinema reel of potential follow-ups to this hug, but now the only thing she could concentrate on was the stench of his breath and the dampness of his sweater. His face shone with an ugly red sheen she'd seen often on Unkar Plutt.

Ben seemed to sag in place, and Rey had to clumsily guide him further into the apartment. He ended up banging his shins against the table, not reacting to it at all, before hitting the wall opposite the entrance. Rey made sure to leave the door open, and Hux and Phasma followed them in. Rey turned her head to the side, still in his grip-of-life embrace, and noticed a near empty decanter of amber liquid on the table. There was no glass in sight, and a sinking feeling in her gut told her it'd been full not too long ago.

"Have either of you eaten?" Hux asked solemnly. Rey realized it was the first time she'd ever seen Hux be anything other than cynically amused at something or other.

The question did make her realize that the last time she'd eaten anything had been breakfast the day before, right before the cookout. Shaking her head, Rey tried to pull away, just to get a better look at Ben, but he just held her close, grip unrelenting.

"Ben," she breathed, realizing that he was actually wavering on his feet himself, "have you had anything to eat since…"

A rough exhale, and a sharp grunt was his response. Even while held close like this, with her cheek pressed to his chest, she could feel the motions of him shaking his head.

"I'll make a stop at the diner," Phasma offered. "What do you guys want? Hux, should I get something for you too?"

"Maz will know our orders," Rey said softly. "Just tell her it's for us. And Hux, you don't need to stay. We'll be okay."

What she really wanted to say was  _Give him space. Give_ us  _space. Please_ because Han hadn't been one of Hux's. He hadn't known the elder Solo well, as he himself had admitted the one time Rey had asked him. Han had been hers. Hers and Ben's, twisted and deformed as their relationship had ended.

Hux seemed to understand though, because his reply was careful when he asked, "Are you sure?"

Was she? No.

But it was the only thing she could do right now.

"Yeah," she nodded.

Ben's grip loosened, and she knew instinctively that it was what he wanted too.

Rey pulled away then, still holding his hand, ignoring the not-so-small part that just wanted to ball up and join Ben in his insensate state. She turned to the pair and put on her best brave face that she was sure they saw through. "I've got this."

Phasma gave Hux a quick kiss on the cheek before scooting out the door, heading toward the diner. Hux pulled a small notepad from his pocket, scribbling on it, "Okay, I should get to work anyway. If you need anything, here's my number," he handed her the paper with a number written in surprisingly elegant script. "I mean it.  _Anything._ "

Rey managed to pull her lips into a small smile, or what she hoped looked like one, and thanked him. He started walking toward the door, but paused, and turned, glancing back at Rey. "Actually," he said cautiously, "can I talk to you for a moment first? Out in the hall?"

She frowned, and looked at Ben, who slowly nodded and released his hold on her hand. "I'll be right back."

When they got out of earshot, Hux crossed his arms over his chest, and tapped his foot nervously, as if he was trying to figure out what to say. Finally, he scowled a bit and said, "I know he shouldn't be alone right now, but I'm not sure I like this. Leaving you here. With him."

Rey blinked, a little taken aback at the sudden turnaround, "Why not?"

He met her eyes, and his expression turned into soft exasperation. "Because you're a teenager. A very cute and smart teenager, who Ben cares for very, very much, and right now he's an upset idiot who apparently had whiskey for breakfast." He sighed and rolled his eyes. "I'm not trying to be a mother hen, or... _suggest_  anything, but it's not a good combination. At least not from how it looks on the outside."

She couldn't muster anything more than a hint of a blush halfway through listening to him, and couldn't manage any response past a nod.

Hux exhaled loudly, seeming embarrassed by the conversation, which had suddenly gotten very awkward. "Just...be smart. Maybe watch a few movies to get his mind off of everything for a little while," he said, "and call if either of you need anything, and if you can't get ahold of me, call Phas or that Dameron kid. Just...don't let him drink any more of that shit. Pour it out when you get inside. Get him to drink some water. Pour it on him if you have to. God knows he's going to need a shower."

"Okay," she nodded.

He gave her another scrutinizing look before shaking his head, and then moved past her to walk down the stairs.

"Hey Hux," Rey called out, "thanks for asking Luke to send me over. And...well, just...thanks."

Hux glanced up at her from the landing he stood at, and, if Rey wasn't imagining things, he gave her a soft smile, and shrugged.

* * *

The day... _creeped_.

Rey wished she could have said that the day was flying by, but grief had made her hyper-aware of everything around her. The sunlight felt like grimy ichor on her skin, and she'd been tempted to just close herself inside with Ben, damn the rest of the world, but she knew that wouldn't have solved anything. She'd tossed the whiskey as soon as the door had closed, watching it drain in the sink as dispassionately as the day she'd broken Plutt's face. Ben had been laying flat on his back on the sofa, eyes closed as vertigo and nausea fought for dominance.

Seeing as how Ben wasn't stuck in the stone-age like Luke, he had a tv that seemed to have been manufactured within the decade. Rey turned the screen on with barely a break in her step, and she'd sat on the ground, her back against the futon Ben laid on. They watched the last ten minutes of an action movie and the first half of a documentary on the history of a particular indigenous tribe in New England before Rey fell asleep, her head leaning into the crook of his arm.

Rey awoke when the buzzer rang, gratefully grabbed the food from Phasma, and then she and Ben ate in relative silence. The food had not been up to Maz's usual standards and she later found it had been because the woman had taken the day off, leaving one of her regular staff manage the place.

At around three in the afternoon Ben asked, seemingly out of nowhere, "Was Chewie there?"

And Rey, momentarily stunned to wonder at the  _Why_  of the question had dumbly answered, "Yeah, both of them."

He looked at her with a lost and confused look, and then Rey's heart broke all over again when she realized just how out of touch those two had been. Ben didn't even know that Han had gotten a dog.

She coaxed him into taking a shower after that, hoping maybe the water would rinse some of the misery that clung to his skin away, but all it did was expose the melancholic pallor in Ben's face when he stepped out, hair washed, face scrubbed, and none the better. There was a restrained gait to his movements throughout the day, as if he were consciously holding himself back in front of her, a shake in his arms and a grimace in his face whenever he thought she wasn't looking.

In the hours before midnight, Rey dozed off on the couch. They'd been watching something pointless and meaningless, and she'd spent the day wondering if there existed words that could actually describe the near-empty feeling in his apartment - something that could actually grasp the void that existed in the space between each piece of furniture and decoration. Ben didn't have a lot of decorations, opting for a more spartan lifestyle, similar to his uncle.

(Despite everything, Rey hadn't been able to stop herself from noting the absence of several pictures featuring Luke that had been there in prior visits).

It was five minutes to midnight when Rey awoke to the sound of Ben walking around. She cracked open an eye, and noticed him coming back from the bedroom, a armful of blankets under one arm, and a pair of pillows under the other. He didn't say anything and instead, draped a blanket over her now-splayed form on the futon.

"Ben," she started, and then yawned. Her limbs felt like lead and her head cloudy with forgotten thoughts.

"Just rest," he whispered, lifting her head gently, tucking one of the pillows under it. He sounded terrible, like he'd just been repeatedly kicked in the chest all over again. "I've already called Luke. He knows you're staying here tonight."

"Wait, Ben," Rey paused, and struggled to put words to her thoughts. She needed to say something. Something important. Tears pricked at her eyes when she realized she couldn't remember.

"It's ok," Ben said, grabbing her hand and shushing her, drawing the blanket over her form. "You've done enough. I'll be ok."

Rey tried to remember what she'd wanted to say, but her body betrayed her. The day's non-events were creeping up and grabbing her from behind, pulling her down back down.

 _You don't have to be ok,_ Rey thought at him, hoping against hope he'd understand her,  _I'm not ok. Luke's not ok. You don't have to be ok. It's ok to not be ok._

But Ben's hand, warm and caring and traitorously somniferous, closed over hers and that was all Rey could handle. Her eyes closed and the last thing she saw was Ben placing his own pillow down on the ground next to the futon.

* * *

Rey had never been to a funeral before, but she had a feeling Han's wasn't a normal one. For one, it seemed that it was more of a celebratory gathering of good friends rather than a mourning. Leia and Han's house was once again host to many people she'd had never met, and some not even properly at the cookout. Seemingly dozens of people grouped in the various rooms, some smiling morosely, others hanging stiff and haunted, while others offered condolences to Leia and each other as they all milled about.

Rey practically felt Ben stiffen upon entering the house, even though she hadn't been watching him directly. Luke had somehow procured an outfit for her that was not the typical black, but was dark enough that it could pass a scrutinizing glance, of which no one had to offer. The whole affair reminded Rey a little of the wait before being let in to a movie theatre.

She caught Ben looking at a few pictures on the wall, and he jerked, as if embarrassed at being caught looking at his parents photos. Rey smiled consolingly, and Ben, still wearing that stiff stubborn visage from last night, nodded.

She made her way over to him. She imagined she heard someone laugh over in the next room, but she paid it no mind.

"Hey," she said, coming up alongside to look at the photos with him. "How're you doing?"

Ben looked at her from his dark eyes, a hurricane of emotion behind them, and all he said was, "It's weird."

Rey waited for him to continue, but when he didn't elaborate she decided to press. "What's weird?"

He put his hands in his pockets and jerked his head to the group of people behind them. Rey thought she heard what sounded like a knuckle popping from his coat. "Being back here. Seeing this place again." A beat of silence. "Seeing these again."

Rey looked at one of them. It was a red wood framed picture, more than a few years old, with a faded yellow tint to it. There was a rip in the upper right corner of the picture. In it, Leia was passed out, sleeping on a couch, and Han in the doorway, a comically oversized bundle of bags and knapsacks and blankets all strapped and hanging from his body, a large baby carrier hanging from his free arm. He'd still been young then, his hair not having lost the luster of chestnut brown that Rey would have said made him handsome. In the carrier, Rey could see a little blanket covering a tiny defenseless form, a peak of night-sky hair poking out from one end.

And then, as if the past few days weren't enough, Rey's eyes were drawn to Han's expression.

The biggest, stupidest, goofiest smile in the world was plastered onto his face, and it was clear the man had no eyes for anyone other than the little one in the carrier.

"That was the day they got home from the hospital," Ben offered. She had to give him credit for his self-control as there was not a tremble in his voice anywhere. "I'm told Leia just collapsed on the couch, and then made him do everything."

Rey wiped at her eyes and was about to say something to console Ben - because  _dammit_  if he didn't need something - when someone interrupted.

"Well hello, what do we have here? Young lady, I don't believe we've had the pleasure of meeting."

The voice was silky, deep, and jesting. In a brief moment of delirium, Rey wondered if Han had any brothers.

Ben tensed and turned to see who the offender was. Rey noticed him relax almost immediately, and a few seconds later he let out a quiet snort. "Uncle Lando," he said dryly, "this is Rey."

Rey glanced over at the dark-skinned older man with bright eyes and (she had to blink to confirm that it wasn't a trick of the eye) a dramatic black cape, and Lando's smile slowly grew wider as he gently took her hand, and dipped to kiss it. "What's a lovely girl like you doing hanging around-" he twitched his head slightly in Ben's direction, "-this no-good, messy-haired, idiot? Last I knew he couldn't even talk to girls."

Ben scoffed.

Lando chuckled and winked at Rey, "See? Poor boy never inherited any of his Uncle's charm."

Maybe it was the incongruity of it all, but Rey felt something warm and bubbly rise up at the words. She let out a giggle, earning an incredulous look from Ben, who huffed. Then, as if that wasn't perfect enough, he crossed his arms over his chest, and rolled his eyes.

Rey suppressed the giggly snort that threatened to escape her.

"Didn't expect to see you here," Ben spoke, turning the subject back to the matter at hand, "I didn't know you and Da-  _Han_  still did business together."

Lando sighed, and his charming smile fell into a thin line. "We haven't in a while. Not really."

Ben raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "Why's that?"

The dark-skinned man smirked, and said, "Why, because Han Solo was a slimy, no-good, conniving, double-crossi-"

" _You_ , shut up," Rey cut in. Whatever warmth she had for the man rapidly cooled. She could feel other people's stares on her, but suddenly she didn't care. "You have  _no_  right. Han is-  _was_ -" a memory of the man smirking flashed through her mind, "He was a good man. He was-"

Ben blinked and put an arm around her shoulders in an attempt to help calm her down, "It's okay," he said quietly, "he doesn't mean it in a bad way. Right, Lando?"

The man chuckled, unbothered by her sudden change in demeanor. "Ah, so  _you're_  the girl I've heard so much about. Pardon me for not noticing sooner. Han only ever referred to you as his  _firecracker._ "

Something hard and strong reached around Rey's heart and squeezed. She found herself blinking back a few tears at the nickname. "I -what?"

"Sweetheart, Han was one of my closest friends," Lando explained. He let out a breath, and suddenly the confident charmer was replaced with an old man who sagged under his ridiculous cape. His sharp eyes dulled imperceptibly, and he gave her a soft half-smile, "I'm going to miss that old pirate."

Rey sniffled, and Ben pulled her a little closer, tucking her head under his chin as she whispered, "Yeah, me too."

A murmur went through the room of people then, and someone she didn't see offered her a handkerchief. Grateful, Rey grabbed it and dabbed at her eyes. She'd forgotten to do her makeup that morning, but maybe that was a good thing. She didn't think she could face everyone with a streaky black marks on her face, even if no one would judge her for it.

Suddenly Threepio's voice was calling out from the doorway leading into the kitchen. "Master Ben, Miss Kenobi, Master Calrissian, if we could gather in the parlor please? Before we begin, Madam Organa has something she'd like to say."

Curious, the three of them fell silent and followed after the funereally dressed man. Soon, Rey and Ben found themselves standing in the same room that Rey had the talk with Leia in not two days prior. The decor had been changed since, and now included pictures of Han that hadn't been there before. They depicted him in all kinds of scenes and situations. Him and Chewbacca sitting side by side in the Falcon, him running from something indeterminately large and dangerous behind him, him and a young Luke in an arm-wrestling contest in a bar, with a group of men around them. Him and Leia in their wedding attire, she in a beautiful and intricately designed dress that seemed to just flow all around her, he in a tux, with one of his favorite leathers underneath, shirt not tucked in.

Luke and Chewbacca were admiring the pictures along with a few other guests Rey didn't know, pointing at various ones across the room, making comments about this and that event that led up to each one.

Leia stood in the center of the room, smiling lovingly at everyone, and looking like a lonely queen.

She wore her hair in an intricate braid that wrapped around her crown, and Rey had never seen her look quite so... _lost?_  If asked, Rey would never be able to imagine how Leia had managed to make  _dignified_ and  _broken_  indistinguishable from each other. Standing there, amongst all the friends and people that Leia loved, Rey was sure of one thing: she'd never seen someone look so lonely, or so sad.

The woman cleared her throat as soon as they joined her in the parlor. Everyone was so quiet Rey could have heard a pin drop, were it not for the Kansas song playing in the other room where the party/remembrance was still in full swing, minus the dozen or so of them who'd been pulled aside to the parlor.

"It's not often we're all in one place," Leia started softly, "none of us have the same lives we did when we met. I've seen some of you plenty of times over the years, and some of you, I haven't seen enough."

Leia's eyes roamed over in their direction, and Rey noticed Ben gritting his teeth.

"It'd like to discuss Han's final wishes with you all," Leia continued. She took a breath as if to steady herself, and when she blinked, Rey saw her eyes were glassy. "Obviously one of those wishes involved not having a traditional funeral, and I'd like to thank you all for helping me celebrate his life the way he would have wanted.

She took a deep breath. "His-" she closed her eyes, and said the next word without so much as a quiver, "death - it was unexpected, as you all know, so he didn't have the opportunity to write out much of a will. But there are certain things I know he wanted, and that's what I'd like to discuss with you.

"First, the Falcon."

Lando let out his short, deep chuckle and chimed in, "You mean the car that bastard cheated me out of?"

There was a titter in the group. Several people smiled and for the first time Rey realized just how much she didn't know about Han. How much she'd never get to find out.

"If I recall that story correctly," Leia said wryly, after a few seconds of letting the chuckles go around, " _you_ were the one cheating. He just beat you at your own game."

She said it with all the directness and straightness of a lethal arrow, but Lando just threw back his head in full laughter. "You got me there, Princess."

"Yes, well," Leia sniffed disdainfully, but with a trace of humor, "moving on. Han spent the last year or so fully restoring it, and last he mentioned, it was in excellent condition."

"If you ignore all the recent dents and scratches," Chewbacca added, voice gruff and rumbling, "the ol' girl's guts are good as new. Probably better than mine."

He punctuated this with a strong smack to his front, and it sent another round of muted laughter around the room.

Leia smiled warmly at the man. "It's all thanks to your help, Chewie. Some days I could have sworn that man lived in the garage." She addressed the room at large again, "But the Falcon...I remember talking with him about it, and he was planning on giving it to…" She cleared her throat, and looked up, in Ben's direction.

"He was planning on giving it to you," she said softly. "If you wanted it."

The hand that was already clamped around Rey's grew tighter, and she looked up at the man next to her, watching his face turn to stone slowly as the magnitude of what Leia had said sunk in.

After a minute, Luke nudged his shoulder, and said quietly, "Ben, you okay?"

Ben let out a cough, took a step to the exit. Rey held his hand tightly to stop him from leaving. "I'm sorry, I can't- it shouldn't be me. Give it to Lando or someone else."

"Not my car, son," Lando replied calmly. "It would have meant a lot to him if you were the one taking care of it."

"Uncle Chewie?" Ben asked desperately, looking over in the bearded man's direction.

But Chewbacca was shaking his head. "I had my times with her, bud," he said, as if that were enough, "I've had some of the best times of my life thanks to that car, but we always knew she was going to you."

Ben blinked furiously, and shook his head. "I can't- please don't ask me to. I don't-"

Before she realized what she was doing, Rey spoke. "I'll take it."

He looked down and gave her what seemed to be a grateful look, and squeezed her hand again.

"Just until you're ready," she added. "It won't be mine. I'll just take care of it for you."

"Okay," he whispered, nodding. "Thanks kid."

Ben considered it for a moment and gave a short nod.

She gave him a soft smile, motioning for him to stand next to her again, and he moved back to her side, exuding gratefulness. People were staring but Rey didn't mind. She could do this. She could handle this so Ben didn't have to.

"Before we proceed further," Leia said, gesturing to everyone to sit down, "I thought we could say something about my husband. I want this to be a moment for everyone to share a little bit about him, nothing formal, but...something the others might not know."

"What should we say?" Luke asked, something both resigned and amused. "If it's Han..." He trailed off.

"Exactly," Leia agreed, as if that particular communique hadn't been cryptic at all, "He was never a fan of the sad and mournful stuff. He'd want something...to make people smile."

Chewbacca barked out a laugh. "Of course he would! Of course he would." He grabbed a drink that had been sitting on table next to him. "How about this! First time he and I met, I almost punched his clock out. Actually, scratch that, I  _did_ punch his clock out!"

"I think you'll find that's not an uncommon occurrence, you ol' grizzly," Lando drawled, stepping forward. "Han once left me naked in a hotel roof in Vegas after I tried snitching the keys to the Falcon."

Laughs rose from that.

Luke stood up from his seat, he too raising a glass. "Because of Han Solo, I know how to stitch a knife wound back together with yarn and a pair of safety scissors."

Rey's eyes practically bugged out of her head she heard that.

"Han Solo cheated me out of every card game I ever played against him!"

"Han once got my kid lost in a Wal-Mart!"

"That man is the reason my wife left me," one particularly rowdy man shouted, "and good riddance to her! And thank God for third marriages!"

One by one people rose, shouting and laughing and cheering the progressively more outlandish things Han had apparently done.

And then it reached her.

Her tongue went dry when she realized it was her turn. She searched her brain and only one memory stood out, one that exemplified all of his Han-ness.

"Han Solo's idea of a driving lesson was to run into someone's flamingo mailbox and then make  _me_  the getaway driver!"

"Wait!" The rowdy man from earlier yelled, "That was  _you?_   Damn that Solo!"

People cheered. They clapped. The smacked each other on the back, each of them talking animatedly of the various times Han took them on some ridiculous endeavor or did something stupid (which Rey was rapidly finding out was not an uncommon thing). The mood had lightened noticeably, and Rey could finally understand the appeal in what Leia had wanted from this group.

And then, as if on cue, one-by-one, all eyes fell on Ben.

He worked his lips together for a moment, before speaking "I think I'm going to get some air." He looked up at Leia as if asking for permission.

Leia considered him for a moment and gave a slow nod. Her face turned sad, and a bit wistful as she watched him let go of Rey's hand, and walk out of the room.

Rey took a deep breath, and stood up, saying to Luke, "I'm going to go make sure he's okay."

"That's probably a good idea," Luke sighed. "But if I know him, he'll want to get out of here. Just text me if you end up leaving."

She gave him a tight hug, and turned to leave, but was stopped by Leia before she got to the door. "Sweetheart, Han had something he'd been planning on giving you," the woman said quietly, handing Rey a small cream-colored envelope. "Take a look at it tonight and let Luke know, okay?"

Rey's brow furrowed in confusion, but she took the envelope. "Thanks, Leia."

The woman gave her a curious look, and then a half smile. "I should be thanking you for getting my son here. I didn't think he'd come."

"I'm glad he did," Rey admitted. She gave Leia a warm hug and left the room in search of Ben.

After ten minutes of hunting through the house, she remembered what Luke mentioned about Ben leaving, and rushed outside, only to find him sitting in the passenger seat of his car.

She wandered over to the open passenger side window. "Hey Ben," she said cautiously, "going somewhere?"

"Yeah, kid," he mumbled. He gestured toward the driver's seat and held up his keys. "You drive. I'll navigate."

* * *

They ended up at a spot Ben knew about, a few miles outside of Coruscant. It seemed to be a quiet park and it was completely empty when they arrived, which shouldn't have been surprising since it was already dark.

She let him take her hand and lead her through the dark to a grassy area, its view of the sky unobstructed by trees, and hesitated for a moment, thinking of grass stains on her dress, before finally shrugging and settling down next to where Ben had dropped onto his back.

They stared up at the sky silently for a while, before Ben's voice finally broke the silence. "I come here sometimes," he murmured. "When I need to get away. From…" he sighed, "from everything."

"It's nice," she said softly, reaching out to tangle her fingers around his.

"Did Luke ever tell you why I started training with him?"

Rey considered it for a moment, and replied, "I...guessed. Sort of. Luke never said anything, but that time we had dinner at your place with Hux, you said something when-" the words died in her throat.

"Yeah," he whispered. "I forgot about that. He...uh…" Ben cleared his throat, "I got in some fights. A lot of them, actually." There was a sharp exhalation of breath. "It...wasn't pretty, for a while there. I kept coming home with bruises, because the fights kept happening. It got to the point where some of the parents of the other kids were coming to talk to my parents."

"And what did they say?"

"The usual," Ben snorted cynically. "Sorry. It won't happen again. We'll pay for the bills. Our kid's just one huge fuckup waiting to happen."

Rey covered her mouth, quietly horrified. "Oh Ben. Did they really?"

There was a quiet grudging silence. "...no," he spat bitterly. "But they were thinking it. Especially him. He...he was the one to bring up the idea to Leia. Of sending me to Luke's."

The park was still; a frozen moment, out of time. Rey waited with baited breath, not wanting to prod too much. Eventually, Ben picked up, "I think that, at some point, I just stopped being his son. I think I just turned into this angry, stupid kid who lived in his house. I think that's what made it so easy for him to...throw me away."

Rey wanted to argue on Han's behalf, but she knew that wouldn't be doing him or Ben any favors. It was impossible to imagine Han saying or thinking anything along those lines.

"So, he sent me off to Luke's. To control my anger, or whatever bullshit reason he'd come up with. Personally, I think he just wanted me out of the house." She felt Ben shift to his side, and face her, "Did you know that Luke had to volunteer to take me in?"

"No...I didn't."

It seemed like Ben didn't hear her. "So there you go, that's who Han Solo was to me. Some shitbag who couldn't deal with a twelve year old's anger issues."

Rey huffed. "Sounds familiar."

"Dunno kid, I think your anger issues are a bit more justified."

That was probably true, but Rey at least knew better than to agree with him aloud.

"Tell me something I don't know about you," he asked suddenly.

Rey glanced over at him to find that he was still staring up at the stars. She sighed, and turned her head back to the night sky. "Like what?"

"Anything," Ben shrugged. "I just want to think about something else. Anything else."

Rey thought for a moment before speaking. She wanted to give him her happy memories, but the truth was, he was in most of them. She didn't have many happy memories from her pre-Dojang life.

"I ran away when I was a kid," she said finally. "A lot. Sometimes it was a daily attempt. Sometimes I had a good reason, like with Plutt, and sometimes I just wanted...something more, I guess. I bounced from home to home, but...well, they were never actually home, you know? I always thought that maybe," she hesitated, and continued in a small, vulnerable voice, "I thought if I ran away and followed light from certain stars, I might find my home someday. My  _real_  home."

Then her voice got a bit more firm - it was the bitter voice of a kid who'd grown up too fast and learned her lessons too harshly. "You hear that in cheesy movies but it's not real," Rey scoffed, trying to keep the disappointment from her voice as she said, "You just end up getting lost in the woods, or having police find you and take you back so your  _guardians_  can yell at you or teach you a lesson."

She paused, and said bluntly, "Starlight doesn't guide you anywhere."

"Of course it does," he whispered. "You're just being too literal."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

Ben pulled a hand through his hair, managing to tousle it perfectly. "Well, it doesn't have to be an actual star. It's a metaphor...it's something, or  _someone_  in your life who reminds you who you are, and makes you feel at home."

Rey's brow furrowed. "Oh?"

"I guess it depends on the person." Ben shrugged. "If you're asking me?  _You're_  my starlight. As long as I follow you, I'm home," he said, matter-of-factly, as if he hadn't just spun her entire world off its axis. "I can't think of anyone else in my life I can be myself around."

He sighed, "I probably sound really whiny right now, but sometimes it feels like I'm being torn apart. Everyone always expects me to be like them, or they want me to care about the same things they do...everyone wants me to be someone I'm not." He turned his head to look at her, letting blades of grass trail across his pale moonlit cheek as his liquid brown eyes met her hazel, "But not you."

She felt breathless, but some part of her brain must have still been working, because she heard herself ask, "Why would I want you to be anyone else?"

He smiled softly. "And  _that_ , Rey Kenobi, is why you're my best friend. And my starlight."

Rey didn't know how to respond. She didn't have the breath to anyway. Rather than stumble over words, she rolled to face him and rested her head on his chest, letting him wrap an arm around her while she laid hers over his waist.

She closed her eyes, and finally took a deep breath.

Forget stargazing. She had the whole night sky in her arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Panic, fire, and tenets.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> AttackotDC: Again, we're really sorry about Han, but this was part of our plan from the beginning. At least nobody got stabbed, right? We knew from the beginning that we had to kill Han for Ben's character development. I don't feel too awful about it because Han's death is canon, so hopefully it wasn't a total shock (though it seemed to be for some readers - sorry!). The least we could do was write him a peaceful death that wasn't at the hands of someone he loved...and hopefully the bit of sweetness at the end helped.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: The next chapter should hopefully be shorter than this. And happier!
> 
> So...about Han sending Ben away when he was a kid...well, we'll hear more about that at some point. Things are rarely so black and white, but Ben is very emotionally invested in the situation.
> 
> The Han wake scene was emotionally exhausting to write. Like, I legit had to take happy cat/kitten video breaks because I wanted to curl up and cry thinking about some of the things I wanted to put down. A good portion did not make it into this chapter, because otherwise this would have been over 10K+ and honestly, I have my limits.
> 
> All the fluff in the end goes courtesy of my dear and wonderful wife, AttackOfTheDarkCurses, who provides the best emotionally repairing hugs ever.
> 
> [ Attack's tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 
[ onfire's tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/) 



	24. Bodan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this chapter really got away from us, but we've got a little bit of everything, from angst to fluff. Enjoy!
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


_Bodan: The previous day has ended, giving way to a new dawn. The student must begin a new phase of training; that of being a black belt._

* * *

_Firecracker,_

_You're not a bad kid. Hell, you're probably the best damn kid around and if Luke hadn't snatched you up when he had the chance I can tell you I'd be writing you a very different letter than this one. How does the name "Rey Solo" sound?_

_I don't deal much in "Maybes" and "I don't knows", kid. When Ben got born and I realized I actually had a duty to someone smaller than my knee and who didn't know not to stick a fork in the socket (true story, ask him), I was goddamn terrified. But I never closed my eyes and I kept walking and even if the boy hates my guts now, I'm damn proud of him._

_Just like I'm damn proud of you, firecracker. I've gotten to know you over this past year pretty well, and I'm impressed. You've got guts, you're driven, you can turn a corner faster than a good many crooks I've known, and...you're better than me. I guess that's all any parent can ask._

_I get that you're worried about your future, which makes sense. Hell, I wish I'd had half as much sense as you when I was your age. But I want you to worry on what to do with your life, not how to get there. Which is why, when it's time, I've already made arrangements with her great worshipfulness to cover the costs of whatever college you want to go to._

_Just to be clear, this ain't going to Luke. It's going to you. It's up to you whether to accept it or not, not him. (But feel free to guilt him, he's known about this for a long time)._

_You'll probably be reading this in the car on the way back. I hope you had fun at the cookout. Don't bother coming back to the house to give me an earful about this, I'll be skipping town with Chewie for a week to take care of some last minute stuff that's none of your business._

_See you when I get back, kid,_

_Han_

* * *

She wasn't going to panic. She wasn't.

She was going to curl up and stay in bed for a while, and then spend the day working at the diner being ordered around by Maz, waiting for Han to come in and compliment her taste in music or mock her taste in men. He was going to smirk at her, and subtly ask about Ben, and lovingly call her firecracker. He was going to casually ask about her college plans.

To which she would tell him off for being so arrogant as to just shoulder the burden that was supposed to be hers. And then, maybe they'd get down to discussing the contents of his letter.

She'd taken far too long to read Han's letter after his funeral. It was now early December, a couple of months after the man's death and the weather between then and now had perfectly reflected her mood. She hadn't intended to put off opening it, but something about reading the man's last words to her set off something instinctive and viscerally possessive inside her, as if drinking in the sight of that ink on paper would be the same as accepting the fact that he was never coming back.

But considering what was happening today, Rey had thought it was appropriate to try and let the past go. She just hadn't considered this.

A knock on the door roused her from her morose thoughts. She stirred and listened to Luke's voice say, "Rey, kid, you ready? Promotion starts in thirty."

Her performance during her last promotion had been lackluster, but no one other than her had held it against her. It had taken place about a week after Han's wake, and even Luke hadn't managed to completely hide the effect everything had had on him. Taekwondo classes resumed as normal the following week, and suddenly she was supposed to proceed as normal, too.

But this time was going to be different. This time, she wasn't testing for colored belts or stripes.

She stood up from her bed. She'd been in her dobok for an hour already, trying and failing to calm her unsteadily beating heart. It kept making thumping sounds against the inside of her chest, and if she'd been hearing that noise from anyone else she would have thought them sick.

Opening the door, she came face-to-face with Luke in his iron-pressed dobok. At some point in the past year she'd sprouted upwards enough that she was no longer craning her head to meet his stare, and now he was only a couple of inches taller than her. Even so, Rey imagined that even if she towered over him, she would still be looking up to him in one way or another.

Sky-blue eyes flicked from her tired and drawn face to the slightly wrinkled envelope still in her hand, and then widened in understanding.

Feeling redundant, nevertheless, the first thing she said was, "I uhh opened his letter."

No need to specify whose it was. Luke's placed his hand on her shoulder, and then brought her in close. She hesitated, briefly, before hugging him back. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you," he muttered, sounding more exhausted than apologetic, "I didn't know if you knew and just hadn't wanted to talk about it but..."

Rey shook her head and pulled away. She forced herself to smile brightly. "I do want to talk about it. Later." The next phrase tasted like cement in her mouth, "But right now is promotion time."

He gave her a searching look, and Rey felt like he'd just seen right through her cheerful facade. He didn't call her out on it, for which she was grateful. She didn't need to verbalize her own doubts. Not today.

"Are you sure you're ready?" Luke asked, in possibly the gentlest tone she'd ever heard him use.

Rey saw the offer for what it was, and no small part of her was tempted to accept it.

She turned around and placed the letter back on her nightstand. Those words could wait, for now. She faced her teacher and spoke the words that would decide her fate.

"I'm ready, Master Luke."

Within thirty-six hours, she would either be a Black Belt candidate…

...or she wouldn't.

Rey wasn't sure exactly what she'd do if that ended up being the case.

* * *

There was a knife in her gut, and her mouth tasted like copper, and she was reasonably sure she could no longer do anything but put one foot down in front of the other.

Thirty minutes in, every part of her, from the boiling blood in her veins, to the screeching bones in her shins, to the moaning joints of her ankles, knees, and hips - even the gasping, gulping of her lungs...every part of her was screaming.  _Stop. Please stop. Stop hurting us._

Forty minutes after that, the screaming had devolved into begging. She'd just about quit when she tripped over an exploratory tree root in the middle of the sidewalk, but by then the shock and the pain just mixed in with the rest of her aches and bruises.

 _The human body wasn't meant to do this_.

Realistically, that was probably true. But it wasn't her body that was being tested, so its pleas were ignored.

Her feet throbbed, but willpower kept them going. She longed to drop in place but her heart kept her standing. Luke had said precious little at the start, other than that he'd be testing their spirits, but Rey's body was feeling plenty tested right now, and her thoughts had turned testy as a result as well.

It shouldn't have been so painful, and yet, it was in ways Rey didn't even know it could be.

They'd started off with what he called a light jog. Except, Rey had taken up running since living with Luke and there's no way in hell it was a  _light jog_. They ran from in front of the Dojang out to the outer edges of the city, through the forests and hills that encroached that side of town. Four miles in and Rey wondered if they were going to run all the way to the next town over, but somewhere around mile five, a little under an hour into their hellish sprinting session, Luke took a sharp turn left, and suddenly they were cutting through the forest, heading back in the direction of town. It was just Luke, Rey, Poe, Jess, and a dozen other Bodans and Black Belts - with no end in sight. Rey was the only one who hadn't reached Bodan yet, so she was the only one who had yet to experience the fresh hell that was Senior Testing.

Rey eventually lost track of how many miles they'd done. The minutes blended together and all her thoughts and focuses condensed into one simple amalgam.  _Run._

There was nothing except Luke's commands. He said faster, she went faster. He said lift your knees, she lifted her knees. She wasn't sure how she managed it, and she couldn't even think to wonder why. She just ran faster. He said jog in place while waiting to cross a street, she jogged in place. He said keep going, and she did. He said  _push through it_ , Rey gulped in some air and pushed. Through. It.

Finally, once they had made it further into Coruscant, Luke stopped in front of a tall, sleek building. They hadn't stopped for anything since Luke had gathered them in front of the Dojang and began their run, so stopping felt alien and bizarre. She almost kept going anyway, onwards and away from this group of crazy people, before sanity (or perhaps madness) gripped her once more and she stopped in place.

The brisk December morning kissed their skin with light mist and an overcast sky. For a small, untouchable second, Rey was floating in place, peace unbroken only by the panting, maddened gasps of everyone trying to suck in as much air as possible. Everyone except Luke, who only looked like he'd just come off a quick power walk.

There was something patently unfair about it.

"This," Luke pointed at the building, "is our goal for today. I know most of you know this, but since it's Rey's first time joining us, I thought I'd give you a reminder. This building is owned by Coruscant University, and they are kind enough to let us use it for our purposes every couple of years.

He turned to Rey, determination in his eyes. "We're going to run up it."

Somewhere behind her, someone sucked in a breath and uttered a muffled curse.

She blinked and looked up at the building. The tower had to be twenty stories high, minimum. She was in good shape, but her legs felt like jello and now she was going to run up  _twenty flights of stairs?_

But that's not what she said. She'd been trained better than that, so all that came out of her mouth was, "Yes, sir." Because the truth was, she trusted Luke with her life. If Luke said she could do it, then she could do it.

Realistically, Rey had two options.  _Do_  or  _do not_. There was no  _try_  when it came to this test.

So if Luke was saying  _we're going to run up it_ , Rey was going to run up it.

They filed through a small side entrance to the building that Luke opened with a key he'd had on a bracelet. They entered into a sophisticated and decorated lobby, before Luke came in behind them, closing the door and locking it with all the compunction of a train engineer. There was something reassuring in his matter-of-fact bluntness and demeanor, and Rey wished she could hug the man without it being improper.

He shepherded them to another door, and they each went through it like drones, descending two sets of stairs that let out into an unfinished basement-like area full of storage bins, cabinets, and unfinished carpentry projects.

Luke gave them about ten minutes before they started, taking the time to explain that they were starting in the building's basement, running up until there was no more  _up_. They were not to leave the stairwell for any reason.

Apparently, one year, a student had decided to fall behind and take an elevator. That student was told to leave, and Rey wasn't sure exactly how the situation had been handled, but nobody had dared to try it since.

She took her ten minutes to first breathe and then guzzle water, until Poe caught her hand and said, "Trust me, that's not a good idea. You'll make yourself sick before you make it halfway up."

Rey just nodded, and then spent the next six minutes desperately trying not to panic in the women's restroom. She paced in front of the mirrors for a solid minute before someone came in.

"Hey, Rey?"

She glanced up and saw Jess. The girl had been a Black Belt for almost a year, and Rey knew she was fairly experienced with senior testing, so she let out a sigh of relief, and gave Jess a desperate smile.

Things hadn't worsened between the two of them, but they hadn't improved either. At best, the two of them had fallen into a mutually agreed upon silent ceasefire whenever circumstances forced them into close proximity. As it was, Rey was willing to take any familiar face to latch onto for stability.

"Sorry," she choked, "I'm just a little freaked out."

Twenty stories of brick, cement, rebar, and who knows what else loomed over them, waiting for their challenge. The vibration from the heater down the hall seemed to bleed into the whole building, giving it an audible predatory purr.

It was a testament to how unbalanced she felt that she was talking about this with Jess. Rey wasn't ignorant. She knew Jess didn't like her, for a variety of reasons. Even so, her fellow student came around and faced the mirror, idly washing her hands in the sink. "It's okay, I was too when I tested for bodan." She sighed, flicked her hands to dry and walked over to stand in front of Rey, "I'm not going to lie to you. This isn't easy. But you're going to be fine. Do you want some advice?"

There were two girls in the mirror. Both looked a little roughed up from their run. One looked like she'd taken a branch to the face while in the forest on the way over. The other had a look that could only charitably have been called peaky.

Rey blinked, hardly believing that the girl was willing to be nice to her after everything. "Yes," she whispered. "Please."

"The hardest thing about this is knowing that you can stop at any time." Jess paused and searched for the right words. "You've got twenty flights of stairs to decide to turn back, and if you want to get through this promotion, you've got to find a way to keep going."

"How do you do it?" Rey asked quietly.

"Master Luke likes to switch things up. I've only done a run like this once, but," Jess took a deep breath, and said, "the first time I did this I was crying and hyperventilating halfway up, saying I was going to turn around. Luke sent a Black Belt who'd already finished back down to help me. To give me a pep talk, I guess. He suggested a sort of mantra that was...well, kind of stupidly obvious, but it stuck with me, and I kept saying it in my head all the way up the tower. Now, whenever things get too hard, I clear my head, and just think of what he said."

"What'd he say?"

Jess sighed, and crossed her arms over her chest. There was a hint of red in her face as she looked away. "Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self-Control, Indomitable Spirit." She shrugged. "Like I said, it's a little lame, but it's the only thing that's gotten me up the tower."

Rey nodded slowly, repeating, "Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self-Control, Indomitable Spirit." She smiled softly up at Jess. "The tenets. Thanks. I...I needed that." She considered the girl for a moment, and asked curiously, "Who suggested it?"

"Ben did," Jess answered simply. "He was scary and a little too unapproachable for most, but...he was always good at giving advice when it was needed."

Suddenly Rey's throat had gone dry, and she found herself admitting, "I wish he was here. I've never been this nervous about testing before. This would be so much easier if he was here."

Jess's brow furrowed, and she shook her head. "No, Rey, it wouldn't be. This test is going to feel impossible no matter what. Ben, or no Ben. That's the point. Once you start climbing those stairs, everyone else fades away. You are the only one who can get yourself up that tower."

She hesitated for a moment and said, "You don't need Ben here to get through this testing. When you earn your Bodan - when you earn your Black Belt,  _you_  will have earned it. This test is for you, and you only. It's not a group project. It's not about teamwork. It's not about whether or not you have a friend to support you. You either fail on your own, or succeed on your own. Can you handle that?"

Rey looked up, and met her own eyes in the mirror.

She remembered hazel eyes and tears and helplessness in the face of the overwhelming presence of her Master, from that dark night so long ago. That girl from back then wouldn't be able to handle it.

Rey took a deep breath and studied her reflection carefully. The girl she saw now had been through hell, but she'd come out of the fires burning and on the way to something better. Now the fire she'd been forced to walk through was circulating through her veins, and taking up residence behind her eyes.

"Yeah," she said. She centered herself and fed the fire with her heart. "Yeah, I can handle that."

* * *

The first seven flights were fine. Well, maybe not fine, but they weren't anything more than annoying, or inconvenient.

It hit her somewhere around the eighth flight.

The beating, rhythmic, almost sonic boom of pain in her legs.

Suddenly, she couldn't keep the same fast pace she'd promised herself she'd stick to. Rey figured, the faster she climbed, the faster it would be over, and the less difficult it would be.

That turned out to be laughably incorrect.

Her lungs checked out somewhere around floor ten, and Rey felt a horrible, unfamiliar tightness in her chest as she desperately tried to suck in as much oxygen as was physically possible. She understood why Master Luke never tested them like this regularly. The human body could adapt to surprisingly difficult circumstances given enough exposure. No, the purpose was to throw her headlong into something she'd never faced before and even if she knew the  _why_  of his reasoning, she could not fathom the  _why_  of his insanity.

It was sort of a 50-50 chance whether or not her knees would let go during each step, so Rey clung to the stair railing, yanking herself up with each step. It was no longer all on her legs to propel her up the stairs. Rey was fighting gravity with her whole body.

_Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self-Control, Indomitable Spirit._

Somehow, around flight thirteen, Rey's brain edited the mantra. She wasn't even thinking it anymore - the words had taken it upon themselves to scream out in her brain while her body struggled to keep moving.

_Perseverance. Indomitable Spirit._

_You're not alone._

_Neither are you._

She saw a sign for floor fifteen and felt blood pounding throughout her body. Her head was throbbing. If her body was breathing, it was only because it had evolved to do so on its own without her consciousness regulating the activity, because her only thought was  _climb_.

_Perseverance. Indomitable Spirit._

_You're my best friend. And my starlight._

Floor seventeen was a bitch, because there were only a few others who hadn't finished, and Rey could hear the students who were done panting, and sighing, relieved on the platform of the twentieth floor.

_Perseverance. Indomitable Spirit._

_I'm damn proud of you, firecracker._

"Come on kid," she heard Luke call, "You've got this."

He shouted words of encouragement to the others who were almost there, and Rey put all her power into focusing on taking quick, light steps. One step at a time. Three floors left to go.

_Perseverance. Indomitable Spirit._

_You've got guts._

_You're driven._

At floor nineteen, Rey nearly cried. She had miscounted, and thought it was her last. She'd already made it up nineteen flights, so the thought of one more really shouldn't have been so upsetting, but at that point her emotions were completely out of her control.

_Perseverance. Indomitable Spirit._

_I'm not sure who got the better end of all this...you, or us._

Finally, with one, two...

_You can turn a corner faster than a good many crooks I've known, and…_

_three_  more steps…

... _you're better than me._

She was there.

She'd done it.

It was over, but the voice still echoed in her mind.

_How does "Rey Solo" sound?_

* * *

Of course, as Rey discovered at some point that weekend, it was far from over. Once everyone had finished and caught their breath, they'd all run right back down the twenty flights and back to the Dojang.

That was when the actual testing had begun.

Senior testing had gone on until maybe mid-afternoon, but Rey hadn't thought much of anything once Luke dismissed them, and she'd found herself crawling up stairs until she was in her room and asleep before she even hit the bed.

Then, the day after that, regular testing happened, and Rey had wanted to both laugh and cry. Testing that had previously seemed so difficult was now ratcheted up ten levels of intensity, and she hadn't expected it. But she'd held it together, absolutely shattered any expectations she'd had of herself, and if she'd fallen asleep against the wall of the Dojang after people started cleaning up, well, no one noticed and it wasn't like it had been anything more than thirty seconds.

Now it was Monday morning - the start of a brand, spanking new school week, and Rey was expected to act like she hadn't pushed herself to the limits. She was lying, exhausted, on her daybed, wondering if she was delirious or if the past two days had actually happened. She'd been successful, and a fresh red and black Bodan belt hung in her closet. She was officially a Black Belt candidate. It was incredible. And painful. Mostly painful. The adrenaline rush had long since faded and left her body a whimpering, used up sack of meat.

That was something nobody had warned her about, but Luke just nodded sympathetically when she complained that they should have. She'd taken a gloriously hot shower Sunday night after promotion, downed some ibuprofen, eaten the delicious protein-packed meal Luke had delivered, and crashed in her bed early.

Then she'd woken up with little to no control over her legs.

At first she thought she must have been imagining things, and then she slid out of bed instead of standing up. Luke showed up in her doorway after hearing the fall and subsequent moan, and just said, "Kid, stay in bed. I already told the school you'd be out today. I have classes to teach, but Ben's on his way over."

Rey sat up, using an inordinate amount of effort to lift her upper body so she could lean against the bed and start carefully stretching the muscles in her legs. "Ben? Why?"

Luke snorted. "Kid, I don't know if you've noticed, but most students have a lot of trouble moving around the day after senior testing. We just about fried your leg muscles. You need to give them time to rest. So, I asked Ben if he could keep an eye on you today. It was either him, or Leia, and if I know Leia she would spend the day fretting over you."

"That's...probably true," Rey admitted. She adored the woman, but Ben would at least understand what she was dealing with, post-tower run. "So, what am I supposed to do all day?"

"Rest," Luke said firmly. "Lots of rest. You should be up and about tomorrow, but just in case I told Maz you might be off your skates for a few days. Today I want you to relax, keep your legs elevated, and listen to Ben. He's been in this spot over a dozen times, so if he tells you to do something, don't fight him on it, okay? You're a stubborn kid, but right now your body needs to heal."

Rey glared at him a bit, but finally rolled her eyes and nodded. After all, the idea of spending the day with Ben didn't sound completely terrible, even if he was basically coming over to babysit.

"Okay, fine."

Luke bid her goodbye and left to go teach. During the day, he usually either dealt with paperwork or taught and led non-martial arts classes in the Dojang downstairs. Most of the time, the classes were populated by groups of seniors or other adults who had the time to workout in the middle of the day, and the classes were mostly generic workouts, while most (if not all) of his afternoon and night classes were devoted to Taekwondo.

By the time Ben showed up half an hour later, Rey had managed to shower (it had  _not_  been easy, and the travel to the other room may have required a rolling desk chair) and change into the coziest pajamas she could find. It's possible those pajamas included a pair of Ben's sweatpants that she'd managed to swipe at some point, but with any luck, he wouldn't notice.

She'd fallen back into bed and curled up, whining softly at how much everything hurt just as a knock came at the door. Luke's apartment was freely accessible via an unlocked stairwell, but he never seemed to ever deal with any crank calls or vandals, so she assumed it was Ben.

The shower had taken pretty much any strength she had, and there was no way she was making it to the door. Instead, she crossed her fingers, hoping Luke had left it unlocked, and called out "Come in!"

She was relieved to hear the door open, and after a moment Ben appeared in her view, leaning against the doorframe of her bedroom with his arms crossed. He smirked, and asked dryly, "So, did you pass out, or did you throw up? It's usually one or the other."

Rey groaned. "Please don't remind me. But, neither, actually."

"Huh."

She glanced up and saw that he seemed amused.

"Well," he added, "you're already doing better than I did."

Grabbing a chair from the living room, Ben sat down and angled himself to face her. He looked better than he had when she'd last seen him a few days earlier. There was finally some color back in his cheeks and, judging by the smoothness around his jaw, he'd shaved recently. His hair was still a mess, but Rey was beginning to realize that was probably just a style he was intent on adopting. She was truly jealous he could pull off  _bedhead disarray_  with more aplomb than she ever would. In fact, he made it look... _good._ So, so good.

"You didn't have to come," Rey said, hoping her smile wasn't too obvious.

"Mas- err,  _Luke_ , asked me to."

She looked over at him curiously. She hadn't missed the almost mixup of names, and he was frowning, looking down and away from her.

Right. This used to be his old room. Even with Ben and Luke agreeing to their strange and bizarre truce that neither of them told her of, Ben hadn't come back to the apartment at any point while Luke was there. Hell, now that she thought about it, since that night he'd slept over, he'd never come back at all. They'd all gone out to dinner together a few times, but those times were few, what with Ben's increasingly busy schedule and (she guessed) his own reluctance in facing Luke after everything.

"So, how'd it go?" he asked, propping his feet up on her bed. He kicked back in his seat, and put his hands behind his head (she did a  _great_  job of not staring at his arms), "And what did you do anyways? Luke didn't mention, and I've been working with some of the guys at my gym, but I'm wondering if he's changed anything."

Rey winced at the memory. "We did a tower run."

Ben smirked at her, and she got the impression he was laughing inside.

"Don't give me that look." She folded her arms and scowled at his haughty expression. "I don't need any of that coming from you, Mr. I-Passed-Out-Slash-Threw-Up."

"Can't help it, kid," he drawled, "You just look so...pitiful."

Grabbing a spare pillow from the small mountain surrounding her, she tossed it directly at him. It smacked him right in the chest, and interrupted his silent chuckling session, drawing an audible "Ooof!" from the man.

She found herself frowning. She hadn't thrown it  _that_  hard.

Seeing her concern, Ben waved it off and picked up the pillow, which had bounced off and fallen beside him. "Don't worry about it," he said, resuming his normal smirk even as he rubbed his chest. "It's just a little reminder to not lower my guard when fighting someone who's been practicing Muay Thai for years."

Several things in that sentence set off small alarm bells in her head. "You're fighting your own students?"

"Not...quite." There was a shifty, evasive look to Ben's expression now, "But really, it's not important. Why don't you tell me more about promotion. Did you guys use the building over at the university?"

She scrutinized him. There was something off about his tone, and from the looks he was sending her, he clearly didn't want to talk about it. Part of her burned and needed to know what he wasn't telling her, but the larger, happier part of her was just glad he was around and she didn't want to scare him off so early into his stay.

So, she swallowed the questions that were on the tip of her tongue, and instead started recounting the shittiest physical experience she'd ever willingly gone through for a sheet of paper and a piece of colored fabric.

* * *

Rey hadn't gotten much of a chance to talk to Luke since she'd read Han's letter. Well. That wasn't  _exactly_ true, but she'd held on to the letter for nearly two months before she could bear to open it up and give it a read, and after that, it had taken a bit of processing time before she was ready to show it to Luke.

The letter had broken her heart all over again.

_How does the name "Rey Solo" sound?_

Her eyes grew watery for a brief second, but Rey closed them and took a deep breath to calm herself.. It had been a week or two since promotion, and while it had been the hardest physical test she'd ever faced, it had also been like stepping through the doorway into something new. She was a Black Belt candidate now, and something Jess had told her kept echoing in her mind.

_It's not a group project. It's not about teamwork. It's not about whether or not you have a friend to support you. You either fail on your own, or succeed on your own._

She'd started pulling into herself a bit. Rey told herself it wasn't because she wanted to be alone, or because she was sad. She simply needed the reminder that she was...self-sufficient. There was something to be said for relying on others, and Rey knew perfectly well that she had plenty of people in her life to lean on, but there was something satisfying and relieving about knowing she could succeed on her own. There was something gratifying in knowing that her successes - and her failures - could be hers, and hers alone.

That being said, she couldn't do  _everything_ alone. That included wrapping her mind around Han's letter, which was why she found herself carefully folding it back into thirds, placing it in its original envelope, and slipping it in her pocket to bring to her and Luke's regular Sunday breakfast before her shift started.

He greeted her when she entered the living room with a nod and a small smile that didn't meet his eyes.

Luke was probably one of the few people who'd been having a harder time with Han's death than she was. Last she'd seen Leia, the woman had thrown herself into working and volunteering to the point where she probably didn't have  _time_  to think about it. And Ben...after the night her and Ben had spent in the park, the evening of Han's wake, Ben had more or less snapped back to normal.

At least, sort of normal. There was something a little off about him lately, but Rey couldn't put her finger on it. He seemed a bit more serious, maybe a little more haunted, but his hugs were as comforting as ever, so Rey couldn't bring herself to ask him about it.

"Ready for breakfast, kid?" Luke asked in his usual gravelly voice. "Make sure you bring some boots, it's going to start snowing soon."

Rey sighed, slipped on her boots, and took the fluffy jacket Luke held out to her. She hesitated before putting it on and then draped it over the back of the chair next to her before surprising Luke with a tight hug.

"Oof," he exhaled. After a moment, he returned the hug, and patted Rey gently on the top of her head.

"I miss him too, y'know," she whispered.

Luke took a deep breath, and said, "I know, kid. I know. It'll get easier."

"Do you really think so?" Rey asked as she pulled away and started slowly pulling on her coat.

"I-," Luke glanced down at her, his blue eyes watery, "I hope so." He swallowed hard, and gave Rey that same not-smile. "But for now, let's get some food."

Maz had gotten back to her usual insane self after a week or two, but she'd been going a bit more easy on Rey, and every once in a while, when the diner was a bit empty, she'd taken to joining Rey on breaks. It wasn't the same as the meals she'd shared with Han, but Rey was thankful for the woman's company.

The crazy old nut gave her and Luke a broad, nearly menacing (at least it would have been, if Rey didn't know any better) smile when they entered, and gestured over to their usual booth, where two steaming-hot plates of food waited for them.

The woman may have had a few screws loose, and an odd penchant for torturing Rey, but sometimes she was an angel.

Halfway through breakfast, Rey stretched her arms, and readjusted herself on the seat of the booth. She heard the soft crinkle of the letter she'd forgotten about, and immediately lost her appetite.

She exhaled sharply, and it caught Luke's attention. His brows furrowed.

"You okay, kid?"

Rey took a deep breath, and reached into her pocket, then handed him the envelope. "This is what Leia gave me. At the wake. I just read it last week...I couldn't, before then."

"Oh." Luke's eyes steeled, and he took the envelope from her carefully, as if it was some ancient artifact that hadn't been touched in thousands of years. "Are you sure you don't mind me reading it?"

She nodded, and for good measure, she added, "Please. The only other person I could talk to about this is-"

"Ben?"

Rey gulped a bit. "Yeah, but-"

"But you don't think he'd want to talk about it?" Luke finished, sighing. "You'd probably be right, unfortunately."

He glanced down at the envelope and set his fork down gently, then finally pulled out the letter, and cleared his throat before starting to read.

Rey watched his reaction carefully, and the moment his jaw dropped ever so slightly, she felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes.

"I...I knew he was going to pay for your college," Luke admitted, "I just never knew that-"

"That he would have adopted me?" she offered softly, wiping at the tears that had started collecting in her eyes. "I didn't either."

"Oh kid," Luke sighed, "I'm so sorry. I don't know what else to say."

She didn't either, so instead, she reached out and took Luke's hand, then held it while they both pretended tears weren't falling from either of their eyes.

"Kid, I hope you know…" something ugly and bitter twisted his face as he turned his gaze down at the table, and then back to her. "I know you and Han had a special connection, and I know I'm not him, but I hope you know you'll always have a home with me."

Rey looked up, and gave Luke a genuine smile. It was probably one of the first genuine smiles she'd worn in months. "I know, Luke. I...I love you too."

And finally, for the first time in too long, Luke's old smile - full of mischief, warmth, and a drop of humor - returned.

* * *

Christmas snuck up on Rey with silent inevitability. She found herself putting off buying or making gifts for people in the weeks leading up to it, and then, about two days before the day of, she fell into a mad dash to complete all everything on her to-do list. She had cookies to bake for Rose, a cap on which to sew goofy horror tags she'd picked up online for Finn, a series of old Taekwondo essays on each tenet to bind up for Luke (including an extra one she'd put at the end titled  _Family_ ), and a host of other things to get for the various people in her life.

No one had told her that acceptance and happiness came with minor heart attacks and confused scrambling to finish up and decorate last minute gifts for people. It was both heartwarming and bizarrely disorienting. By the end, Rey found she could appreciate the complaints people had for the inane jingles that played tonelessly in every single store and market and even on the radio.

They were having Christmas dinner this year at Luke's. They'd not even considered having it in Leia's home, for reasons that didn't need explaining. Ben's place was a bit too small to accomodate all four of them, and maybe it was just her, but Rey had been thrown for a loop when she realized that this would be her first Christmas with  _Ben_.

(She cursed her hormones for immediately wondering what the price of mistletoe this time of year was. Or if she could hide it somewhere inconspicuous around the apartment. Like her room. Then she remembered she was seventeen, and sighed).

Rey was just taking Leia's winter coat and draping it along one of Luke's lumpy sofas, when she turned and noticed the yellowed and aged box of what seemed to be square folders out in the hall.

"Help me with this, will you, dear?" Leia said, bending down and heaving the box up by the cardboard handles punched in on two sides. Before she knew it, Rey was grabbing the box from Leia, and almost toppling over from the unexpected weight.

She lugged it inside and watched, bemused, as Leia brought in another box, just like the one in her arms.

"What are these?" Rey asked, wondering and bending her back to hold the box up. The top of the box was open and she could see that what she thought were folders were actually large square sleeves, containing black discs. The images rang something in her consciousness, and she was reminded of a particular scene from one of the old and terrible horror movies she and Finn had watched together years ago.

"Records?" she asked, looking and seeing Leia drop the second box in front of Luke's old tv. "Are these records?"

Leia smiled wearily. She'd lost weight in recent months, and she looked like she'd been giving blood transfusions every fortnight (which, knowing Leia, would not have surprised Rey), but the woman hadn't lost that aura of steel and purpose in the interim. "These are Han's old records," she said, as if saying the name didn't bother her, "I've been distributing his old things, and I know he would have wanted you to have them. I have his old record player for you, too."

Rey stared at the woman. She replayed the conversation in her head and wondered at what point they'd moved on from Christmas matters to something batshit insane.

It's just that...she'd gotten a glimpse of some the albums. A good many of them had signatures on them. Signatures of names she recognized, and Rey didn't doubt for a moment that they were authentic. They were priceless, literally and figuratively.

Her first instinct was to reject them outright, but prudence and caution, strangers though they were to her, stopped Rey.

They belonged to Han.

Maybe it was the season, maybe Rey just intrinsically understood what Leia was saying with a gift like this, so the next words out of her mouth were not a rejection, and instead, something else.

"I'll make sure to take good care of them," she said softly, walking over and placing a hand over Leia's. She realized just how relatively small this woman was, and her respect for her grew immeasurably in proportion to it. This was a woman trusting her to watch over the pieces of her husband's legacy.

Leia nodded with dry eyes that shone in the light of the cheap lamps in the corner, and brought Rey close, placing a sandpaper-like featherlight kiss on her forehead. "Thank you, dear."

"No, Leia," Rey whispered, sniffling just a bit, "thank  _you."_

* * *

Ben had arrived just before dinner, apologies abound for not showing up in time to help cook. Apparently Snoke had him working most of the day, a statement which had caused a long stare between Luke and Leia. By that point though, Rey was taking his jacket and letting out mirthful giggles, which seemed to confuse him.

Luke's cooking skills had improved, but not  _that_  much, so the man had ordered takeout for all of them. Ben snorted when he saw the table covered in little white boxes, but after stiffly greeting his uncle and mother, he helped himself to a couple of boxes and a couple sets of chopsticks and settled down next to Rey on the couch.

He handed a pair of chopsticks to her, and she grinned broadly. Luke and Leia joined them, claiming chairs for themselves and spreading more food options out on the coffee table they all sat around. Luke found a copy of  _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_  hiding amongst one of his little nooks in the apartment and though Rey had seen it before (and read the books,  _obviously)_ , suddenly the story of a young boy finding his place in the world - finding his  _family_  - struck a chord in her that it never had before.

Ben glanced over at her, and softly nudged her shoulder with his own. "You ok, kid?" he murmured, low enough that Luke and Leia didn't notice.

She met his eyes and nodded, smiling ever so slightly. Ben's brow furrowed, as if he was confused by her reaction to what, realistically, was a happy, not-cry-worthy movie, but she just answered his question by setting down the box she held, curling her legs up under herself, settling against him, and resting her head on his shoulder.

"Just happy," she said quietly.

Rey was too busy watching the movie to see the soft, affectionate look he gave her, but she wasn't so wrapped up that she didn't notice him press a light kiss into her hair.

* * *

By the end of the movie, half the food was gone, and Luke had admitted that he  _may_ have over-ordered.

Rey rolled her eyes at the man. They'd be eating chinese takeout until New Years.

Presents were given and unwrapped in a flurry, and Rey was thrilled that the Solo-Organa-Skywalkers (they really couldn't have picked  _one_  last name?) weren't the sort of people to unwrap one present at a time. Luke chuckled at the bound collection of essays, and gave Rey a mischievous look that said  _That'll teach you to never sell homework again._  She didn't bother telling him about the much longer essay at the end. It was one he'd never asked her to write, but Rey thought it was her best one yet.

Somewhere in all the commotion, Rey caught a glimpse of Leia, giving Ben a misty, curious look as she held an opened envelope, and an unfolded piece of paper. He leaned closer to the woman and said quietly, "It's for two. I thought…" he hesitated, "I thought we could have dinner together."

If Leia said anything in response, Rey didn't hear it, but she did see the woman put her hand on Ben's, and use her other hand to wipe a tear just before giving him a nod.

Ben took a deep breath and smiled before reclining back next to Rey, and his cheeks turned pink when he saw the surprised expression she gave him. Before his shyness went any further, she swallowed hard, and handed him the present she was the most nervous to give.

He didn't miss the uneasy expression, and his eyes searched her own as he asked, "What is it?"

Rey just shrugged. "You'll have to open it."

His eyes narrowed, and he looked back to the present, unwrapping it carefully. When the frame was fully removed from the paper, he turned it over and studied it carefully, his eyes widening in recognition. "The date...is that the day-"

"It's the first day I came to the Dojang."

Ben's eyes looked over to meet hers, as he said softly, "The day we met."

Their interaction had apparently garnered Leia's attention, because she leaned over and asked, "That's lovely, what is it?"

He cleared his throat, explaining, "It's a map of the night sky on the day we met."

"Oh," Leia gasped, "that's a very sweet gift."

He'd never broken eye contact with her, and Rey could barely breathe as he replied, "Yeah, it is."

After a moment, he finally glanced to his side, and picked up a small box Rey hadn't noticed on the side table. He handed it to her with a light smile playing at the corners of his mouth, saying with a hint of amusement, "Great minds think alike, I guess."

Rey raised an eyebrow and smiled down at the little box that was in her lap. It wasn't wrapped - the maroon box had a thin silver ribbon crossed over it, tied in a small bow. She untied it gently, and opened the box, and let out a soft, " _Oh_."

In the box she found a delicate silver chain, holding a small star-shaped pendant. "It's beautiful," she breathed. It was all she could think of to say, so in lieu of any further thanks, she turned toward him and wrapped him in a tight hug, and...well she just didn't really let go. Ben sighed and tugged the blanket off the back of the couch, resting it over her, and they stayed there while Luke put on  _Home Alone_.

She didn't miss the strangely silent conversation Luke and Leia seemed to have with their eyes as they each regarded the gift she'd been given. It looked like Luke was going to say something, but a glare and a smack on his shoulder, courtesy of Leia, stopped him.

Rey paid them no mind. The movie was great - one of her favorites, actually, and she would have loved watching it, but Ben's shoulder made too good of a pillow, and she drifted off before the McCallisters were doing their familiar hustle and bustle through the airport.

* * *

She managed to sleep through the entire movie, and Luke watched curiously, and maybe a little wearily, as Ben lifted her from the couch as though she was weightless, gently maneuvering her until she rested in his arms, her head supported against his chest.

"I'm gonna tuck her in," he explained, quietly so as not to wake her.

Leia watched fondly, a small smile gracing her lips at the scene.

Luke... _wasn't_ smiling. Instead, he huffed a bit as Ben brought her into his old room, and scowled a little in response to Leia's smile.

"It's sweet," she told him, "why are you so grumpy about it? I think it's nice that they're so close. The girl needs more family in her life."

"Family, my ass," Luke muttered, "You didn't have to find them sleeping and curled up together in her bed."

Leia blinked at that, and Luke turned toward the bedroom, finally deciding to walk down the hall and poke his head in.

He arrived just in time to know he was interrupting something private.

Rey was curled up around a pillow, fast asleep, and Ben sat at the edge of her bed, carefully brushing the hair out of her face with the hand that wasn't holding hers. He gazed down at her for a moment before leaning down, and placing a soft, possibly lingering kiss to her forehead.

Luke should have left then. Despite everything he said, he trusted Ben not to do anything stupid, but this was something he'd longed to see, once upon a time. It was rare - rather, he'd probably  _never_  seen his nephew be so caring, or so expressive.

Then he heard the words Ben said, and it was as if the walls fell away and the icy grip of the evening stormed in and planted a single, sharp icicle into his heart.

"I'll tell you the truth about everything someday, Rey," he whispered, completely unaware of Luke skulking in the doorway. "I hope you'll be able to forgive me."

The rumors Luke had heard about...

Ben sighed, and murmured, "Goodnight, starlight."

Before he'd even risen from the bed, Luke was off and away, silent as a mouse and warier than he'd been in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Decisions and laundry.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> AttackotDC: This version of senior testing is pretty close to the sort of testing we went through. Of course, testing kinda depended on what my Master felt like having us do. Sometimes I look back at it and wonder what the hell I was thinking, but the weird thing is, if she told me to jump, I'd probably still do it without question. I'm not sure if that sort of level of trust is common between Masters and students, but that's how we've chosen to portray it, because that's our personal experience.
> 
> The loss of leg muscle control post-testing is actually for real. Nobody warned me the first time and I freaked out. After the first time, I made a habit of making sure professors knew I'd be out for a day or two, and I basically stocked up on ibuprofen, heat packs, food, books and movies. Plus thebuildingsnotonfire, of course. We dealt with the misery of post-testing pain together.
> 
> I'm responsible for the fluff at the end, but if you'd like to know who just stabbed you in the heart with the whole "Han wanted to adopt her" thing, thank onfire.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: Other fun things that I've heard of for senior testing: running a few miles against the flow of a lazy river, followed by a couple miles uphill on a treadmill. There's also a bit where they can just strap leg and arm weights and suddenly do everything possible to make a mere 3lbs weight on your wrists feel more like 300lbs. Push-ups, sit ups, burpies, star-jumps for days, there is literally an endless variations on the kind of crap a master can have students do. Fortunately, ours was pretty stable. We only had to do something like a tower run once, and I'll never wish it on anyone again, because my god, there's no experience quite like realizing that no amount of mental effort is going to move those almost-dead legs of yours.
> 
> Martial Arts Notes:
> 
> Muay Thai - A martial art that incorporates many elements of boxing and kickboxing, but also throws in the use of knees and and elbows. It's an amazingly intensive and intricate art, but it's hard on a body. It's also a really good way of getting in shape, if you can withstand the strain. Not going to lie, facing a competent Muay Thai or even a half-competent Muay Thai practitioner is like throwing yourself against a whirlwind of pain. Pro tip: do not block their elbow strikes with your face. Even better pro tip: don't get in a fight with someone who for all intents and purposes has eight combat capable limbs. Ow.
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 
[ onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/) 



	25. Bodan, First Stripe, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Officially sort-of at the halfway point and oh boy. Well. This is a chapter we've been building toward. Nothing action-y here, but there are things that needed handling, and this chapter...oof. But look, despite whatever heartbreak we've put you through (and will put you through), I've written a lot of future scenes and I can promise it'll be worth it.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


"It was a  _necklace_ , Rose," Rey emphasized. "That has to mean something, right?"

It was mid-February, and they'd chosen to ditch Liam and Finn in favor of a girl's night, and Rey knew the second Rose showed up with two pints of Ben & Jerry's and a Ouija board that it was going to be a bit more intense than a usual Friday Night Sleepover. Horribad-Friday-Sleepover (name change pending) had essentially split down the gender line for the day.

Much to his dismay, Luke's plans had fallen through at the last minute, and he'd ushered them into Rey's room with a promise of pizza as soon as it was delivered. Then he'd shut the door behind them, leaving them to giggle as he muttered something about being  _too old for this shit,_ and honestly, if she knew he wouldn't expect payback during their one-on-one training sessions with something ludicrous like  _walk a mile backwards_ , Rey would have sniggered and audibly guffawed at just how much of a cliche he was being.

The minute the door closed and Rey knew Luke was out of earshot, she'd turned to her friend and asked (read: begged) for her opinion on the gorgeous, delicate silver necklace she probably hadn't stopped wearing since Christmas.

Rose frowned ever-so-slightly. "I...I don't know, Rey." She sat down on the daybed and motioned for Rey to join her, then turned and met Rey's eyes. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope it didn't. Mean anything romantic, I mean."

Disappointment was not an emotion she was used to feeling in Rose's presence.

"Why not?" she asked quietly. Rose was normally so enthusiastic about well...everything.

"It's just," Rose cringed, "he's what...twenty-five? -ish?"

Rey winced and nodded. "I know, I know, but I'll be eighteen in less than a year."

"That's true," the girl admitted, "but don't you think it'd be a little weird for a twenty-five year old man to be interested in a seventeen year old?" Rose paused to consider her words and then quickly amended, "I don't mean that in a bad way - you're awesome, but Ben's...an adult. Like, an  _adult_ adult. With a job and an apartment, and a college degree. He probably has a savings account, and life plans and credit cards and all of that."

There was a bite to those gentle words of hers, a ring of truth that Rey wished her friend hadn't pointed out. As much as Rose had made fun and teased her about her crush on Ben, the sympathy in her voice spoke volumes all on its own.

"Yeah," Rey said softly. She suddenly found herself very interested in the hem of her sweater and began picking at it. She didn't think she could bear to face Rose or her well-meaning eyes. Then she whispered, "I just really like him Rose. He makes me feel so  _safe,_  and so cared for."

"And I'm glad you have someone like that in your life," Rose said gently, taking Rey's hand. "I think, maybe someday, there could be something there. Between you two. But I don't think you'd ever have a healthy relationship if something started now."

Rey sighed. "I just wish I could read his mind sometimes. Lately it's been...it's been really confusing."

"It probably doesn't help that the idiot gave you a really romantic gift," Rose supplied, a disapproving expression gracing her soft features. "And the whole  _starlight_ thing?" She groaned, and fidgeted for a moment next to Rey before finally saying, "Well, you guys are really close, right? Like, best-friends close?"

"Yeah," Rey nodded.

"Maybe you should talk to him," Rose shrugged. "If it's genuinely confusing you and bothering you, talking to him seems like the only way to figure things out. Maybe he doesn't realize how confusing he's being. With everything you've said, it kinda seems like he's sending mixed signals."

"That's-"

"Girls!" Luke interrupted with a knock at the door, causing them both to jump. "Pizza's here!"

* * *

Coincidentally, they'd all received their letters at around the same time, and, since apparently this was a thing people did, Rey, Finn and the rest of her friends had all decided to gather at Maz's diner, both because it had become their de facto hangout spot that wasn't their houses, and because Luke had called Leia and Ben and decided to throw a celebration dinner. Rey had no idea what they were even celebrating yet. She'd just as soon have opened the letters in relative obscurity and burned any rejection letters in her wastebasket.

(That last idea was probably unadvised, especially considering the recent inspection the city's Fire Marshall had done of their building.)

Somehow, what should have been a quick five minute decide-your-life-in-an-instant moment, turned into Maz calling in her other waitstaff to serve the sudden onrush of chattering teenagers, adults, and martial artists. The glare Rey had gotten from the attending waitress, a short, scathing blonde named Clarice, had almost made her wince. Almost.

Phasma was really good at scaring others, it turns out. Ben had inexplicably invited her to come with, since they'd been coming from Snoke's gym over in Mandalore, and while Rey might not have chosen to have her there, the snark she supplied every conversation she was in was worth putting up with her.

They crashed a lot of tables together, and managed to make one big contiguous block of chairs, a fact that really only made the lives of all the waitstaff harder, who now had to adjust to a whole new floor layout while on skates.

Finally, the moment was at hand, and, after verifying that everyone of her friends got into their various colleges with little trouble, Rey opened hers.

She ripped the seal of the envelope open, yanked the paper out and immediately went searching for the line that would start with "I'm sorry" or "Congratulations"

She zeroed in on it immediately. "Congratulations", it said, in size 12 Times New Roman black font on eight by eleven sheet paper. That's all she needed.

Finn clapped her on the back and whooped. Rose grabbed her from behind and started squealing about going to the same school. Even Liam, who had decided to leave Coruscant and pursue an electrical engineering major on the west coast, had given her a soft, friendly grin.

She didn't know what the big deal was.  _Everyone_  got accepted into Coruscant University.

Luke, forever stiff and sometimes overy formal in public situations, got misty-eyed and offered her a quiet but powerful hug and word of congratulations. Leia didn't even bother with formality and just outright hugged her.

It was only that last one that Rey felt the tinge of unease about. She still hadn't forgotten about the letter. Or Han's promise.

"Don't you worry," Leia whispered in her ear, as if guessing what she was thinking "We'll talk about it some other time. For now, just enjoy."

Poe arrived then, late from his position at the library, and immediately started shouting, happily congratulating everyone even though he had no idea who'd been applying for what.

Everyone broke into chatting pairs and trios then, while a procession of food starting leaving from the kitchen.

"Girlie!" Maz called from the back, not even showing her head in the window, "You get in?"

Rey's mouth opened, and for a second she forgot how to speak. Even  _Maz_  was interested? The woman ran through teenage staff faster than she did napkins at this place! "Yeah! Coruscant University!"

There came a sound like a yodeling cat, and Rey realized that it was Maz laughing and cheering. "I knew you had it in ya! And you can keep working here when you graduate!"

Whether she was talking about college or high school, Rey didn't know, and with a noncommittal noise she moved away from earshot of the window, over to a booth, where Finn now sat.

"Hey," she said, sitting down across from him.

"Hey," he said, grinning.

"Been a while since it's been just the two of us," she pointed out, glancing at the rest of the impromptu party.

Finn rolled his eyes playfully. "Miss me that much?"

"You wish," she snorted, "You went and stopped being cool. Now you're all into video games and computers and-"

She stopped when she caught sight of his expression. He looked...wistful.

"Everything alright?" she asked, turning in her seat to spot who he was staring at. Rose maybe? She was talking with Liam, and Luke and Hux (when did he get there?) by the counter, rapidly verbalizing every little thing that was on her mind. Rose had the kind of mind that kept going in loops around a track, building up energy and momentum until her mouth could barely keep up. Rey knew for a fact the girl was going to be brilliant some day.

She turned to face him again. There was something sad and melancholic to him.

"I think," Finn said, "that I should have said something important to a certain someone a long time ago. I was hoping he would get it but..." He trailed off.

Rey nodded in sympathy, finally understanding, until she realized that there was a very specific word she'd not expected.

"Wait- 'He'?"

She turned in her seat again and spotted Liam.

"What?" Finn grumbled defensively, bringing his arms up and looking to the side, "I liked him."

Memories shot to the forefront of her mind. Moments and actions and conversations between them all suddenly getting a whole new meaning.

"So...he doesn't…?"

How do ask someone if they and your ex-boyfriend ever sat down and had a talk about dating like mature individuals? That sounded like the plot to an after school special with a lot of underpaid actors, and, as evidenced by her culturally malnourished childhood, an episode she had most definitely not watched.

Finn chuckled and seemed to take pity on her. "Liam doesn't like me like that," he said, dark eyes glittering with amusement. "The guy's been holding a torch for you again ever since our first group Chemistry class."

"I- how- what-"

Finn laughed some more at her gobsmacked expression. "You're smart, Rey. Smart and a super badass to do the stuff you do," he said, his words a complete contrast to his laughter, "But honestly, when it comes to people, you suck worse than your Chemistry grades."

"Hey!"

"What?" He shrugged. "It's true."

Rey frowned at him before noticing he still had that gentle and mild look on his face. "Is that why you hung out with him so much?"

Her friend coughed and looked away. "I didn't really know how to tell him. I guess was just hoping he'd...get it. Somehow. In retrospect it was not a smart idea."

Rey thought back to her times with Ben, and found herself aching in shared wincing. "I know how you feel."

"Hah." Finn met her eyes and offered her a mischievous smile. "I guess you do."

Oh no. Did every one of her friends really know? Was she that transparent?

"I should head over there," he said, standing up and gesturing towards the group cloistered around the counter. A waitress was behind it, dutifully and haltinglingly taking notes and order from half a dozen other customers at once. "To make sure your kung fu guy doesn't scare the piss outta' Liam again."

"He's not  _that_  bad," Rey defended, but of course, in the interest of dramatic irony of the universe, that was when a sound-devouring silence fell amongst their group.

There was some discussion going on at the counter.

Feeling urgent for reasons she couldn't explain, Rey got out of the booth and walked over to the group, and only managed to miss the beginning of whatever was said.

"-isunderstanding, wasn't it, young man?" came Luke's voice. It was Master Luke speaking, not weird, kinda' goofy Luke.

"Yessir!" Liam meeped out, his voice a wobbling violin of wound up strings. "I'm so sorry sir. Really I didn't-"

"Calm, child," Master Luke spoke, "It's alright. Besides, I'm sure Ben was joking about that.  _Wasn't he?_ "

There was a single crackling moment of strain in the air, a pressure behind her eyeballs that warned of potential impending doom. Then, like the sea parted, Ben said in the most begrudging and resentful voice possible, "Yes, Uncle Luke."

No one said anything for a bit. Rey couldn't see through the crowd of guests to see what was happening, or who was looking at who. Not that she needn't guess.

"Food's here!" Phasma shouted, upon seeing the cornucopia now available and cooling at everyone's seat.

It was the most obvious sidestep and deflection Rey had ever seen, but it worked.

Like a sandcastle in the tide, the group broke up, and one-by-one people made their ways to their various seat.

Rey desperately wanted to know what had just happened but one look at everyone there, especially Liam, Luke, and Ben, told her that maybe this was one exciting conversation that she could do without knowing the specifics of.

(She made a note to get Phasma a nice piece of chocolate cake or something late. The woman was kind of a bitch at the best of times, but damn if she wasn't a lifesaver).

* * *

Late March came with a weird, untimely, freak-snowstorm that closed down streets and piled up multiple feet of white fluff and frigid water everywhere, especially in several key areas that ended up flooding with half-melted ice in the middle of the day. It was so bad that in the interest of making sure his students didn't accidentally knock themselves into walls during the whiteout, Taekwondo had been cancelled for a couple of days. Luke  _never_  cancelled classes.

Rey made a valiant effort to show up to work, carrying her skates in mitten-covered hands while the rest of her was bundled up like antarctic explorer gone trekking somewhere even Polar Bears wouldn't venture, but Maz waved her off when she arrived, claiming she'd decided not to open for the day. The woman just shoved a few boxes in her hands and gestured down the street.

In the direction of Ben's apartment.

"Go keep him company," the woman said, or rather, ordered. She'd done up her hair and put on a faint shade of pink lipstick. Rey also couldn't help but notice the nicer than normal floral pattern on her shirt. "We're not getting any business today, girlie."

Wondering how Maz was going on a date in this weather, but not wanting to invite disaster and reckoning upon herself, Rey quietly took the food and skedaddled her way out the door before Maz's beau showed up.

And that's how Rey found herself buzzing the door to Ben's place. She'd texted him on the way, of course, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that he was home from work (though, basically everyone was thanks to the snow) and was happy to have her company.

She bustled up the stairs, at least as much as all her snowgear allowed (her boots weighed a  _ton)_ , and found him standing in the doorway, holding a mug of what smelled like hot cocoa while greeting her with a smile warm enough to ward off the bitter cold that seemed to chase her in from the outside.

"Hey kid, got enough layers?" he chuckled.

Rey shrugged, though she had so much on that the motion probably didn't show. "Luke insisted."

"Right, Luke…" Ben's brow furrowed, and he worked his lips together anxiously. "Does he know you're not at the diner?"

"I texted him," she smiled. "No response yet, but he won't mind. When I left him he was on the couch with a blanket and a few books."

He nodded, seeming relieved, and opened the door wide to let her in. He took the boxes of food from her with a pleased hum, and after a few minutes she'd finally managed to climb out of her snowgear, only to realize she was in her diner uniform.

Cute.  _Not_  practical for a cozy day of watching movies, which was undoubtedly what they'd do.

She looked down at her outfit and groaned, knowing her plans for a cozy, warm day had been spoiled by pin-up pants and a somewhat formal-ish button-up that, if she was being honest, was getting  _just_  a bit too tight in certain areas.

Ben had gone into the kitchen to put Maz's food in the fridge for later, and when he came out and saw her uniform he snorted. "Want to borrow something?" he offered. "That doesn't look like the most comfortable outfit to relax in."

... _borrow something?_

Rey's smile was positively predatory when she answered with an innocent, "Absolutely."

Less than fifteen minutes later she was curled up next to Ben on his futon, wearing an oversized pair of sweatpants and old band t-shirt in black, of course. Ben's closet was decorated in more shades of black than the poetry open mic night at a non-chain cafe. Rey had tried and failed to keep it in and was now giggling away at some ridiculous movie straight from the '80s called  _Spaceballs_. It was absurd, and she  _loved_ it.

They watched the movie together in comfortable, gut-busting laughter as it went on, and only started relaxing against each other's shoulders as a soporific exhaustion started creeping up on them towards the end. The day couldn't have been going more perfectly, in Rey's opinion.

Once the movie ended, Ben checked the time and sighed. He gave Rey a guilty look and said, "I should probably try to be a  _little_  productive today."

She frowned. "How productive?"

"Well…" he shrugged, "I should at least do some laundry. I've been trying not to let it build up. We've got a set of machines on each floor, and it seems like everyone uses them on the weekends, so if I could get mine done today it would be ideal."

There was something wrong with her mind. Her first thought had been to wonder if he was going to wash the shirt she was now wearing, and if he'd be taking it off her. This, of course, was supplemented by her wondering how she could go about stealing it.

Fortunately, they'd been laughing so hard she was still red in the face, so she had no problem speaking her next few words without betraying her thoughts. "That's not bad. I thought you were going to say we had to go outside for something."

Ben glanced over at her, amusingly alarmed. "Are you nuts? You couldn't  _pay_  me to go out in that snow."

"Is  _Ben Solo_ , Third Degree Black Belt and all-around Taekwondo badass  _afraid of a little snow?"_  Rey's lips curled into a mocking smile.

He rolled his eyes and a hint of pink appeared on his cheeks. "Shut up, kid. I'd just rather stay inside. I don't think I'm crazy for wanting to avoid a few feet of snow."

"Nah, you aren't," she agreed, laughing. She gave him a reassuring smile and said, "Okay, laundry it is."

He puttered around, grabbing loose clothing here and there, and much to her dismay did not make any mention of grabbing what she already wore (which he might as well have not, this shirt was hers now and there was no way he'd be getting it back). Finally, after five minutes of scattered adult-ing, Ben grabbed the detergent from a closet and they went down the hall to the laundry room.

It was a simple room, with a pair of driers and and washers on both sides of the room, with a single plastic table like in laundromats between them on the far wall. One dryer had an Out-of-Order sign taped to the top. It was surprisingly warm in the room, though Rey imagined that probably had to do with the only ventilation being the metallic tubing leading out to the walls from the back of the dryers.

Rey hadn't done a single load of laundry since she moved in with Luke. Well, that wasn't exactly true - in fact, she'd done a  _single_ load, and he'd seen the result and immediately ordained that he'd be responsible for laundry from then on. She didn't completely understand, but she wasn't about to complain, and to make up for it, she'd made a point of doing other chores whenever she saw they needed to be done.

She didn't have much to offer Ben in the way of help, so instead she settled for climbing up on top of the defunct dryer, sitting on its edge while Ben crammed pre-sorted laundry into a small front-load washer. He didn't even bother measuring detergent - he just poured a bit in, pursed his lips, made a frustrated noise, and poured a bit more.

Rey tried not to laugh. She really did. It's not as if Plutt had ever offered to teach her how to do laundry properly, so she couldn't really mock him. But of course, a giggle still slipped through her lips, and Ben glanced over at her with an eyebrow raised.

"Something funny?" he asked, sardonic amusement gracing his face.

Rey smirked. "I'm guessing Luke did your laundry too?"

A complicated expression at the mention of Luke came over him before he shook his head. "What, he doesn't let you do yours either?"

"Oh he did," she replied hesitantly. "But...just the one time. I- I might have dyed some things pink."

Ben paused for a moment before huffing amusedly in his  _I'm so cool_ way. It made her want to pinch him. "Of  _course_ you did. That's such a  _Rey_  thing to do."

"Uh,  _excuse me,"_  she replied in a tone of disbelief, "what's  _that_  supposed to mean?"

He chuckled and slammed the door to the machine closed, then put in a card and pressed a few buttons before walking over to stand in front of where she sat, dangling her legs off the dryer. "Oh, don't be so offended, sweetheart, I'm only joking."

"Are you?" she asked, challenging. "Didn't sound like it."

Ben's lips tilted up into a half-smirk and he waved his hand in a  _so-so_  fashion.

Naturally, she smacked his shoulder for that. "You jerk," she scolded. "It wasn't like I dyed everything on purpose."

"Oh I'm sure you didn't," he agreed. "I'm sure it was a complete accident. Like I said, it's a very  _Rey_ thing to do."

"I can't believe this!" She threw her hands up in exasperation before grabbing the edge of the dryer for a hold once more."I show up with food in the middle of a snowstorm, keep you company, and you  _tease_  me! You're terrible!"

He hummed, and leaned a bit closer, placing a hand on either side of where she sat. "Yeah, maybe."

_He smelled like hot chocolate._

Rey gulped. Ben was close... _very_ close. Much closer than she'd expected him to get. She looked at him with wide, wide eyes, and-

It's possible that she looked down at his lips.

It's possible she'd been considering what they'd feel like on hers.

_Soft, tentative, confident, warm, delica-_

Nope. Nope. Nopenopenope.

She scanned the edges of her vision for something else, anything else, to distract her, but her eyes kept being drawn to the lips that were only a few inches away.

"No," she said, hushed, "you're not terrible. I think you're kind of amazing."

The corners of his eyes crinkled and-

_Did he just get closer?_

She felt her eyes flutter closed, and-

"Hey, Ben," a voice interrupted, "I think I need to talk to you about something," the voice snapped. " _NOW."_

Rey's eyes snapped open, and she looked over to see none other than Hux, dressed in slacks and a button up, looking like he'd just come from an office meeting instead of down the hall. He glared at them both with an expression she couldn't decipher, but it seemed like some sort of mix between righteous fury and deep-seated concern. It...was actually pretty frightening.

Ben stood back up, no longer leaning over her, and tilted his head. "Hux, what's wrong?"

Hux scoffed and turned to the side and ungraciously muttered something that sounded like, "You have some nerve asking that."

Ben fully turned to face him and crossed his arms. "Hux, seriously, what's going on?"

But instead the red-haired man ignored him and said, directly to her, "You should probably get going, Rey. The storm's lightened up for now, but they say it's going to get worse tonight."

Rey recognized the serpentine tension mounting in Ben's shoulders, and suddenly she knew this was not a conversation she wanted to be present for.

"What's your problem?" Ben demanded. His voice had gained the unfortunately familiar growling basso tone from what seemed like a lifetime ago.

"You should know  _exactly_ what my problem is, Mr. Karate Kid," Hux retorted, "Couldn't even have waited a few months?" The hardness in his face sequentially tightened and then loosened as he looked at Rey and urged, "Rey,  _please_  go home. Ben and I need to talk, okay?"

She looked up at Ben, thoroughly confused, and she saw him exhale, like a locomotive in preparation for something dangerous. "It's okay, kid, you can go. Hux has some explaining to do and maybe," his lip twitched in suppressed displeasure, "it'd be best if you weren't here for that."

Rey blinked, and glanced between the two of them before deciding she really didn't feel like sticking around for whatever pissing contest these two were going to get into. She hopped down off the dryer and left the room before she got a chance to say goodbye, intending to grab her snow gear and...apparently head back to Luke's.

* * *

They waited in relative silence as Hux strained his hearing to make sure she walked down the creaky stairs and slammed the building's front door three floors below. He'd been complaining about the sticky door for months, but now he only breathed a sigh of relief when he heard it.

Rey was undoubtedly confused, and probably more than a little angry with him, but he'd bear that cross every day if it meant doing the right thing just now. Unfortunately doing the right thing also left him alone in a small room with no windows and one exit and a  _very_ pissed off Ben.

He was just glad he was the one closest to the doorway. And that there was no lock on the door.

Shit, maybe this was a bad idea.

"What was that about?" the man in front of him asked, anger pouring off him in waves.

Hux did not miss the single step Ben took forward, nor the way his hands had balled up into fists. Very large, and very eager-looking fists.

He took a deep breath, and tried to remind himself that, despite his obvious anger issues, Ben was, generally speaking, a somewhat decent person and more importantly, a good friend.

"Ben," he spoke warily. He'd decided he'd rather diffuse the situation than make it worse. "Do you really think I'd let you do that?"

"I've already asked you not to call me that, Hux," Ben said, voice as smooth and outwardly calm as the man he was emulating. The shiver that crept up Hux's spine was all due to the cold, of course. "And what are you talking about?"

Hux's mouth had gone dry. "I- Ben- "

"I said  _don't call me that!"_

"Fine then!" Hux yelled out, both instinctively and in disgust, "Kylo Ren! What the  _fuck_ do you think I was doing?"

The other man stopped in his slow prowl, as if to assess him. "That's why I'm asking. All I saw was you came in and started acting like an asshole. Friends as we are, I've got enough on my plate to deal aside from a pissy neighbor who can't be bothered to explained himself."

"That's rich coming from you," Hux's mouth was spouting before his survival instinct could take over, "And I think my reaction was perfectly reasonable!"

Hunter's eyes narrowed, as Ben muttered, "Your reaction to  _what?"_

Ok,  _screw this._ He still had his self-respect to think about here.

Hux frowned, and folded his arms across his chest, feeling the not-so-reassuring weight of a pen in his chest pocket. A pen wouldn't do much for protection. Hux made sure not to take a step back, because that'd show more weakness than he could afford, but he still pondered his next few words.  _Was Ben really so clueless?_

He cleared his throat and said carefully, "My reaction to the fact that it  _appeared_  that you were about to kiss a seventeen year old. Or possibly, that you were going to let  _her_  kiss  _you_."

He kept his tone as neutral and empty of inflection as he could, even as he prepared himself for a possible worst-case scenario.

When Ben recoiled in surprise, Hux sighed, finally realizing the man truly hadn't known how the situation looked. How their whole relationship looked, for that matter.

"I- I-" Ben stammered, awkwardly and shy, with no trace of the deliberately methodical gait from before, "That is  _not-_ I- I wasn't going to-"

Hux wiped a bead of sweat that had formed on his brow, taking care not show how nervous he'd been.

"Yeah, I know that  _now_ ," Hux interrupted dryly. "But I'd bet you my entire bank account that she got the same impression I did."

His friend's eyes opened wide. "You think she thought-"

 _Wow_. It was hard to imagine that the guy in front of him was a fully functioning and self-sustaining adult. For all the terrifying moments and moods he sometimes got into, Ben was an absolute sap at anything relating to people without a martial arts filter to speak through.

"Oh absolutely," Hux nodded. "She's had a crush on you for a while. I assumed you'd noticed, but I guess not. Ben- sorry, Kylo," he hastily corrected, seeing his friend's warning look, let me paint you a picture."

He leaned against the doorway, and gave his friend a pitying look. "Rey is a cute, talented, confident seventeen year old girl with a broody, attractive, older best friend. Don't try to deny it - I'm pretty sure brooding is one of your pastimes, and probably something you put on your resume." Hux smirked.

So, poking the recently sleeping bear wasn't the smartest idea but nobody said Hux was the picture of sanity either. Besides, he needed this to calm down.

"That best friend takes every opportunity he can to hug her, and give her innocent little kisses on the forehead. They even  _cuddle_. It's downright Disney, if you ask me. He's very protective of her, and he calls her by adorable little pet names and buys her romantic presents, and-"

"Romantic presents?" Ben interjected.

Hux scoffed. "It took you an hour and a half to pick out that necklace. I  _tried_  to talk you out of it, and this is exactly why. Let me ask you something: you and Phasma are really close, right?"

"Yeah, sure."

"And have you ever bought her jewelry?"

Ben huffed. "No, of course not, we're not-" Realization and understanding crossed his face in a fashion that was vindictively pleasing to Hux's sensibilities. " _Oh."_

"Yeah. Oh."

"Shit."

And didn't that word alone just aptly sum up their entire conversation? Christ, he needed a drink. Freaking Solo's.

"So you see why I interrupted?"

Ben nodded slowly, lost in thought. "Yeah," he admitted after a moment. "Yeah, I get it." He sighed deeply, and looked over at Hux with a lost expression, "What the hell do I do?"

Hux shrugged, "I think you're going to have to talk to Rey. You've almost definitely given her the wrong impression, and you need to make sure she knows that."

After a moment of silence Ben groaned, and then, in a moment of clarity that epitomized their relationship up to now, he asked, "Hey Hux, want to get drunk? I really think I need to be drunk right now."

And after everything, all Hux could do was let out a humorless laugh and lead the way.

* * *

March melted into April, and with it so did the snow. As if to compensate for the sudden freak storm that had kept her inside, Rey was spending most of her time outside in the following weeks fighting a losing battle against a rainy deluge that never seemed to end. It was only toward the end of the month that fresh little sprouts of green started popping up everywhere.

It seemed the weather insisted on reflecting her mood. She'd been equal parts elated and heart-poundingly anxious after the moment she'd shared with Ben in the laundry room, but eventually she fell into a wallowing murk once she realized it was going to be a while before she'd see him again.

Ben had been swamped with work at Snoke's gym, all stuff just thrust upon him by his Master (at least according to the occasional friendly text they'd exchanged in lieu of meeting up), and as a result she hadn't him since the snowstorm.

Then, one late Saturday afternoon, he showed up at the diner in a slightly damp sweater, looking more sapped and weary than she'd seen since Han's funeral. When he walked in, he just gave her this  _look_ , and Rey knew in an instant that something was wrong.

He sat at the counter while Rey finished serving her last customer, and the second she was done, she skated over to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders while he sat. He tensed under her touch, and although he didn't inch away as he usually did whenever Leia or Luke touched him, she didn't miss his complete refusal to return the hug.

Ben had never been the most expressive person, but a knot of worry formed in her gut nevertheless.

"What's wrong?" she murmured against his shoulder.

Ben shook his head. "It's just stuff at work. I-" he stopped, and she could feel the tension under his skin through the sweater, but all he said was, "I don't want to talk about it. When does your shift end?"

"It just did," she said quietly. "Want to get out of here?"

He looked down at her with sad eyes and something undefinable hiding behind them. His shoulders sagged, and finally, he nodded.

Unsurprisingly, they ended up at the same park they'd gone to all those months before, when Han died. Rey had gently suggested taking the Falcon instead of Ben's car, but the mere mention of the vehicle had caused his pursed lips to twitch down into a scowl. She'd tried filling the empty space on the ride over with small talk - little things, in an attempt to reach out to him, but he'd only responded with curt grunts and monosyllabic words.

They walked to their previous spot and laid down in the grass. Cold water left over from the rain soaked into their clothes, and Rey shivered, but didn't rise from her spot. She tangled her fingers in his as they laid in silence. The sun had gone down, so it was just them, out there in the grass, with nothing but the stars, the moon, and each other.

Ben cleared his throat, and said, his voice barely above a whisper, "So, I've been thinking, and...we should probably talk."

_This was it._

Rey's heart chugged a triple dose of adrenaline and took a hard left onto the rocket speedway leading to a world filled with "Oh my God," and "Yes, please". Somehow, through admirable effort, she managed to suppress her instinctive grin.

 _She'd been right._  She wasn't alone in her feelings. He'd probably just been feeling a bit guilty, given the age difference, and  _that's_  why he'd been acting funny.

Rey turned her head to observe him. He was grimacing, looking away from her like he was afraid to say any more. She decided to make his life a little easier.

"I know," she spoke softly, "It's okay, I feel it too."

Ben's hand - the one she'd been holding - jerked suddenly.

Before she could question it, he pulled his hand away, and suddenly she was left grasping at wet grass, feeling like she'd forgotten how to breathe.

Ben started speaking then, at first slow and stilted, but picking up pace. "Uh no, that's not exactly what I was going to say." She could see him bite the inside of his cheek, harshly, before continuing, "I think you might have the wrong idea, kid. It's probably my fault but...I need to set things straight."

A curious cold flower bloomed in her chest when she heard that. Rey blinked, and the only reply she could come up with was a hasty and defensive, "I'm not a kid."

"Rey, you're seventeen," Ben said carefully, as if correcting her. "As far as I'm concerned, you  _are_ a kid. And, you're also my best friend. So there's that, and your age, and just one of those is enough of a reason. And," he sighed and looked away from her, "and you deserve better, anyway."

She turned on her side to face him, propping her head on her elbow. "Why would you say something like that? What do you mean, I  _deserve better_?"

Ben groaned. "Kid, this isn't even a conversation we should be having. A seven or eight year age difference might not be a big deal for people in their twenties or thirties, but kid, trust me, that kind of age difference is a problem when someone's  _seventeen."_

"Okay, fine," she agreed, "I get that, but what was that part about deserving better?"

In the dark of night, she heard what sounded like a knuckle crack from Ben's direction. She felt more than heard the shifting in the ground next to her as Ben fidgeted.

"Fuck, are we really talking about this?" he muttered. He sighed deeply, and sat up, doing his best to avoid looking her in the eye. "Okay, I'm going to say this exactly once, and then we're going to forget this conversation ever happened."

 _Wishful thinking_. Rey snorted, but let him continue.

He took a deep breath, and said, "If you're going to date someone or have feelings for someone or...whatever, it should be someone your age, or at least a lot closer to it." He seemed to vibrate in place as he spoke, each word probably meant to sound final, and discouraging. "Someone who isn't so fucked up."

"Ben, you're  _not-"_

"Stop," he cut her off with a gesture. "Just...look, I know I was probably a safe choice because it would never happen, but you need to move on. Find someone nice, and, I don't know, safe?"

Laughter. Tinny, mechanical, and cruel laughter, like from a jack-in-the-box, rang in her ears.

"I know you probably think you've got a crush, or feelings, or something, but it's not real," he explained, finishing his sentence in what he probably thought was a gentle tone. Swallowing broken glass might have hurt less. "Get it? It's not  _real_. It's not the kind of thing that lasts. It's the sort of thing you'll get over."

"Get over." Rey repeated, numbly. Then she scoffed, but it came out as more of a cold laugh. "You think it's something I'll get over. You think  _you_ are someone I'll  _get over?_ "

When Ben finally met her eyes, she wore a wide-eyed, almost amused expression, because at this point, what else could she be? Whatever meager hope she'd felt was gone, replaced with a sharp and pungent melting pot of shame, embarrassment, and a healthy dollop of indignity for good measure.

"Yeah," he said, weakly. And then he offered her a lame, half-hearted grin.

Rey shook her head in amazement. Sure, she was only seventeen and he really wasn't wrong about the age difference being inappropriate. She could admit that. She'd argued with herself about that for hours, long before she ever talked about stuff like this with anyone, even Rose. But the fact that he was basically equating her feelings to puppy love - just doe eyes and fluttery feelings in her stomach - had driven her straight past annoyance and heartbreak, and parked her directly in the parking lot of petty, pissed off, and antagonistic.

"Fuck you, Ben."

The words came naturally to her lips, and the surge of vicious pride on seeing his calm face jolt back as if struck was gratifying.

"Uh…kid, what-"

"No, no," she interrupted, holding her hand up to shush him, because there was something righteous burning in her and she was not going to just  _let this go_  as he would have put it. "You already had a chance to talk and you fucked it up. Now you get to listen."

For a second, it looked like he was going to sneer at her, but Rey decided to chalk it up to even more of that  _idiotic boy ego_. She didn't know what she'd do if he actually tried to keep up the insulting facade of talking down to her.

She lowered her hand, and confirmed that he had, indeed, shut his gorgeous, stupid mouth.

"Think whatever you want, but it doesn't mean you're right," she said bluntly. "I'm not sure if you've been paying much attention in the last few years, but I haven't exactly had what most people would call an  _easy life_." There was a rushing sound in her ears and her face pricked with the scorch in her cheeks.

She wanted to hit him. She wanted to punch him and kick him and hug him all at the same time. Damn this man.

"And that's fine, because honestly, my life's better now. And in some ways, it did me a favor."

Ben's face seemed to darken at the mention of her past. "Kid, it's  _not_  fine. What you went through-"

"Is not your responsibility, Ben!" she all but yelled, "Get that through your damn head! Stop treating me like I'm made of glass."

 _Please_ , she thought. She desperately wanted to say that bit, but she had her pride, and right now she was too pissed to care.

When it was clear that he wasn't going to say anything, she continued.

"You see," she said, "while most of my peers were worried about who to take to homecoming, or how they were going to pass math, or what their BFFs and the rumor mill were saying about them behind their backs, I was more concerned with silly little things like where I was getting my next meal, or how I was going to cover a particularly nasty bruise I'd earned because Plutt thought I'd gotten cheeky with him."

His eyes hardened at that comment, and he looked like he was about to chime in  _again_ , so she brought up her hand again. "Uh-uh. Shut it. I'm not finished."

Rey took a deep breath and tried to stretch it until forever and a few hours ago, when this conversation had never started. No luck. She licked her suddenly dry lips and kept going. "I think I have the right to say I'm a bit more grown up than the average seventeen year old. I'm not saying that suddenly makes the age difference appropriate, because I know it doesn't, but I think it at least gives my feelings a bit more validity than you're lending them.

"And now that we've established that I'm capable of determining how I feel," she trudged on, "You know that whole  _puppy love_  argument? Bullshit. Utter  _bullshit_. Like, you'd have to go in deep into fertilizer to get close to how bullshit that is." She paused to catch her breath. "So let's address the rest of your ridiculousness.

"First of all, people don't deserve other people, and if you actually think that, well that's just a bit fucked up and you should work on that. People  _choose_  who they care about. Second, you're kind of being a hypocrite, you know? Third-"

"Hypocrite?" he interrupted rudely, finally snapping at her. There was a mounting tension in his neck, and in the way he looked at her - looked  _down_  at her. "Please, Rey, tell me - how have I been a hypocrite?"

Her nerves steeled, and she had no idea where the hell the words came from, but they came out a lot more poetic than most of her angry ranting usually did, "Ben, you can't call me  _your starlight_  - and yes, I've noticed that you call me that," she spat, "I'm not deaf, shockingly enough."

"I never thought you were," he rumbled, now rising to his feet.

Anyway," she continued, ignoring him, "you can't call me that and then act all surprised to find out that I think you're the whole damned night sky."

Ben made a disapproving noise, but she stifled her first instinct to call him out on it, and kept going. The next few words felt like lead in her heart and cyanide on her tongue. "I just- I care about you, but you're sending me mixed signals here and I'm really not sure what you expect me to do, or how you expect me to feel. Maybe I'm crazy, but none of my other  _friends_  treat me the way you do. So what did you expect would happen?"

A moment of silence passed, shared between them and the emptiness between.

"You can't fucking call me your  _starlight_  and then tell me it's wrong that…"  _No no no, don't cry. Not here. Not now._ Rey closed her eyes and cleared her throat, finishing with, "You can't tell me it's  _wrong_  that I shine for you."

The words, meant to spear him with their weight and tear at him with their barbs, pulled at her skin nonetheless. Not wanting to remain on the ground any longer, she finally stood, taking her time to gather her breath before standing up straight and looking up at him. Somewhere in between her crouch and her rise, she'd steeled her expression into something hard and unwavering.

He seemed to get that she'd finished saying what she wanted to say, but after that last admission he'd gone from rudely interrupting to letting his mouth do that weird fish-gaping thing that only happened in the rare moments when he was truly speechless.

(Was that good? She had no idea if that was good.)

Closing his mouth, Ben then looked away before murmuring, "Has anyone ever told you that you're really well spoken for a teenager?"

He took a deep breath, and sighed, pulling a hand through his hair. "Look, kid, I'm...I'm gonna go, okay?"

"Go?" Rey asked, her brow furrowing.

"Yeah," he nodded, not meeting her eyes. "I've got to be at First Order early tomorrow, and-"

"You're running away," she said softly. She could only do "softly" at this point. Anything else would have toppled her.

He let out a low, cynical-sounding chuff of laughter, before turning to her, a guilty expression on his face. "No, I'm not."

Rey scoffed. Weakly. "Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?"

"I just have to get home. You should too. Come on, I'll drop you off."

Where once she would have welcomed a drive with Ben like nothing else, suddenly the thought of stewing in that stifling silence made her ill.

"Uh no," she dismissed, shaking her head. Her hair was wet from laying on the ground and clung to her face in all sorts of uncomfortable ways, but that was the least of her worries right now. "I'm not going anywhere. Certainly not with you."

He worked his lips together impatiently. "Kid, we're miles outside the city and it's going to start raining. Come on."

"I have a much better idea." Something dark burned behind her eyes as she snapped, "Why don't you take a hint and go fuck off?"

"I can't just leave you here alone," he muttered.

"At this point," she growled, "it's the  _least_  you could do."

"Do you at least want me to call a cab or something?" He sounded defeated and done with the conversation, and that notion alone stoked the flame of rebellion in her one last time.

"I can take care of myself, Ben," she said, "I've been doing it my whole life, after all. And it's not like I don't have other people I can rely on."

And just to taunt him, she took out her phone, fully charged, and brought up Luke's contact information.

(She had no intention of calling Luke, especially considering the questions he'd ask. She just wanted to spite him.)

After a moment he snorted and sighed disparagingly, and then walked away. The ground squelched and suckled at his feet as he left her.

She heard his car start, and he drove off.

It only hit her when the lights from his car disappeared, and she was left in their spot.  _Alone_.

The silence around her seemed to gain a physical, hungry pressure. It was like it wanted to swallow her whole.

She stayed there even after the rain started. It was almost a relief, not knowing if the dampness on her cheeks had come from the sky, or her own eyes.

When the rain came, the stars disappeared from the night sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A saved seat, a hug, and an unwelcome customer.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> Attack: Sorry, but it had to be done. I've seen other fics start relationships while Rey's younger than 18, but this isn't one of them. This is a 50+ chapter fic and the end goal is a healthy, happy relationship - emphasis on the healthy. Ben did totally screw up here by downplaying Rey's feelings and trust me, he'll suffer for that, but I hope you guys don't hate Hux for any of this. Hux is putting Rey's feelings before his friendship right now, and I kind of love this version of Hux. Just a reminder, if you're currently freaking out a little bit, we aren't doing the whole "Ben and Rey don't talk to each other for a year while they're being stupid and awkward" thing. No time jumps, no long separations. These idiots will just have to deal with their shit.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: This marks an interesting turning point. We are halfway through with the entirety of the story, and we have this kind of conversation between our two leads. But honestly, it's just to highlight the simple fact that they both are not ready for a relationship. Ben, as we've shown, is a bit of an idiot and kind of oblivious about a lot of things he's done and how they can be seen from an outsider's perspective not to mention that weirdly and plot-developingly-convenient attitude he's been developing since he started working with Snoke. (There's totally nothing going on there guys. I swear. Really. Don't you trust us?)
> 
> Rey on the other hand, just sort of proves Ben's point, even if she goes about doing so in the most prideful way possible. Rey is a survivor and a scrounger, and often retreating from scary things, or things that tick you off, are what make sure you are still a survivor the next day. In this chapter, and with some earlier ones, we see her run or ignore the darkness that has been growing within Ben, in addition to that fantastically awkward conversation at the end.
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 
[ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/) 



	26. Bodan, First Stripe, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting! We're still getting back into the swing of things after coming home from our trip, and I'm wrapping up the last few weeks of my summer courses. Things have been a bit nuts.
> 
> We're picking up almost right where we left off at the end of chapter 25. I've written most of the scenes for Chapter 27 already, so onfire just needs to have his turn with it. We're looking good for a weekend update.
> 
> Finally, we have a playlist now! We'll be updating as we post each chapter.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/176006013117/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


"Rey, what the hell is going on?"

She took a deep breath, buckled herself in, and readied herself to answer Poe's questions.

It had taken her about an hour of stubbornness and shivering in the rain to finally decide to call someone for a ride home. Unfortunately, neither Rose nor Finn had their own car, and asking either of them would have raised questions with their respective guardians.

Despite implying that she would call Luke, she  _absolutely did not call Luke_.

Phasma had been her next consideration, but Rey had a feeling that would get back to Ben.

Rey paused, and swallowed the feelings that were about to bubble up out of her.  _Nope. Not tonight_.

So she'd settled on Poe. Of course, being the good friend and all around decent person Poe was, he had questions.

"It's nothing," she said quietly, "But thanks for picking me up."

He didn't start the car, and instead, looked over at her with dark eyes filled with concern. He wore the collared shirt and khaki pants that his work required, and suddenly Rey realized she'd called him away from his shift.

"Rey, I came all the way out to get you and I'm glad you knew you could call me, but I need some answers. Why were you out here?" He mulled over his next questions with peculiar thoughtfulness. "Who were you out here with? And why did they just ditch you here?"

She fidgeted for a moment, mulling her options before finally landing on honesty. At least,  _partial_  honesty.

"Ben," she said quietly.

Poe gave her an odd look. "Ben? Like, Ben Solo? Why would you be out here with Ben?"

Something hard and disapproving began seeping into his voice as he continued, "And why the  _hell_  did he just leave you out here? What happened?"

Any other day she would have jumped to Ben's defense. Instead, she sniffed and tried to say something, anything, but found herself choking back tears she thought she'd suppressed. Seeing her reaction, Poe's expression faded back into worry.

"Rey," he asked softly, "what happened? You can tell me anything, I swear. It'll just be between us."

She crossed her arms over her chest and sunk into the seat, and did not meet his stare. It was an effort just to will the tears in her eyes to stay put. "It's nothing, Poe, I swear."

And maybe it even was  _nothing_  to Ben. Just some silly girl with a silly crush trying to live out some silly fantasy. The idea made her clench her fist tightly to the point where it hurt, and there was a metallic taste in her mouth as she settled further into the blessedly dry seat of Poe's car.

Poe sighed, and gently reached across the seats to touch her shoulder, "That's obviously not true," he said carefully. "You're upset. It's not hard to tell."

Swallowing what was left of her pride, Rey glanced over at him and let her shoulders sag. She wanted nothing more that to be back in her room with her books and her music and her pillows, and for the rest of the world to go screw itself, but for coming out here in the middle of the night, he deserved some honesty. "Yeah, okay. It...it wasn't nothing."

"I'm guessing Solo found out how you feel? And he handled it in his awful, blunt, stupid way of handling things?"

Poe was giving her a knowing, sympathetic expression, and somehow that made things worse. Of course, her brain couldn't help but point out, Poe had known Ben for a lot longer than she'd seen them together for. Of course he'd know how Ben would react when confronted with someone who didn't want to just kick or punch him. And in a way, it was nice that he wasn't laughing at her. That had to count for something, right?

"Yeah," she nodded. "I really don't want to talk about it."

He dropped his hand down until it rested on top of hers, and he gave it a gentle squeeze. "Okay, Rey," he said, "I get that. I'm glad you knew you could call. And if you change your mind about talking you'll let me know, right?"

"Sure, Poe," she said, managing to bring her lips into a soft smile. "Thanks."

"Not a problem," he winked, returning to his charming self. "Just don't forget - Solo's kind of an idiot, okay? You could do  _way_ better. Pity you aren't my type."

Rey blinked, and in spite of the uncomfortable soup of ick in her lungs and heart, she giggled.

* * *

The cloudy days of April died a sudden and unexpected death, and with it so did the steady and ceaseless rain that had been tormenting Rey. The downpours of spring gave way to the green and flora the season was known for, and suddenly Rey was hearing talks of summer plans and last trips and final gatherings. Apparently the summer before your first semester of college was meant to be a magical time filled with firsts and lasts, because so many people wouldn't be seeing each other again.

Which seemed odd to Rey. So many of her classmates would just be changing their commutes to Coruscant University, or even living on its (admittedly beautiful) campus. Even Rose had exchanged a few teary goodbyes with her robotics club friends, even though a couple of them were planning on joining the same major as her.

So, it was a month of good-byes and a month of parting of ways. Their graduation loomed over them like a large impending tidal wave, there to wash them away into the ocean of adulthood or some other tripe. Rey's English teacher hadn't been very clear when talking about that last bit.

With a mutter and a sigh, Rey killed the engine in the Falcon in front of the Dojang. She'd avoided driving the car at first, both because of the memories it brought and because she'd gotten along perfectly fine without a car for a long while, but the simple utility it offered her eventually won out. She no longer had to rely on Luke and his aging junker or her friends' families for transportation, and while it had been hard to adjust to the old car, she was grateful for it.

That and she missed the old girl. The Falcon purred under her control, and Rey occasionally got misty-eyed whenever she looked over in the seat next to her, expecting to see the grizzled and craggly face that she knew she'd never see again.

It was mid-day - classes had been dismissed early for the graduating seniors, who only had a few short weeks left, and who'd proven to be rowdier this year than most. The staff had all but washed their hands of everyone, and it was only the barest efforts of propriety that was still keeping everyone contained. The drive from school to Luke's, which had once taken so long via the public transit system in town, had been a mere ten minutes in Falcon. With the window rolled down, and the stale, tepid nature of traffic this time of day, Rey had let her mind wander adrift as Jimmy Eat World's  _The Middle_ pushed her along.

Things were changing, much as she wished they wouldn't. Ben had left Luke's gym a little over a year and a half ago, and yet it always felt like he was one good conversation away from coming back. Han had died only nine months ago, and yet occasionally Rey got hit with the overwhelming urge to call him up and listen to his ridiculous stories. It was like people kept being railed along some indefinable roller coaster without restraints, and if they got thrown out after a particularly vicious corkscrew or loop,  _oh well._

Training with Luke was one of the few constants she had left. She'd wondered when or if their extra training sessions would ever end, but at the same time found herself wishing it wouldn't. As she made to get out of the car, something on the dashboard - some small almost unnoticeable trick of the light in the corner of her eye - got her attention.

Curious, Rey dropped the handle and peered close, scooching herself up in the seat to get a good look at it. In the top of the dashboard of the Falcon, a little to the left of the steering wheel, was a small groove in the surface. Squinting, she traced the groove, and ended up wiping a small layer of dust that had caked over, revealing a small rectangular area, about one inch by three, that had been traced out.

She couldn't stand up in her seat, but from this angle it looked like a latch, cut into the dashboard. It reminded her a little of a secret compartment she'd seen one kid wittle into the side of a wall in the last group home she'd been in, back when she thought that was the worst it could get. Despite his usual driving tendencies, Han had been meticulous in pointing out every part of the Falcon when he'd been teaching her - even the buttons that he'd ended up modifying on the main panel, resulting in a slightly faulty air conditioning but fully functioning "chaser surprise" marked "for emergencies" that Rey had yet to figure out.

(Sometimes, she really wondered what he'd gotten up in this old car of his.)

That he'd skipped out on this little secret compartment was odd.

She tried to stick a key into one of the grooves, but found that the incision was too thin to try and leverage it open. She swapped to a different one, but met the same result.

Her phone beeped, reminding her to be at the Dojang, and she decided to leave it for another time.

Her and Luke's private training sessions had been lightening up. She'd been making good progress (at least according to him). He no longer tormented her with hours of repetitive music or made her do agonizingly simple motions at a pace that made photosynthesis seem interesting. Instead, there was a lot of focus on body awareness as he took her through several variations of breathing exercises. She'd become keenly familiar with the feeling of her dobok on her skin, of the scrunchie in her hair, and with the frequent burning in her arms and legs. It was meant to be enlightening, but all it had done was highlight how gawky and uncomfortable she felt in her own body at times.

It was a sensation Luke had assured her was completely normal.

That still didn't stop her from biting his head off around the time her innards felt like they were tearing her apart. She was completely mortified afterwards and had apologized profusely but Luke had just laughed and said that she wasn't the first woman to threaten to disembowel him for making her exercise.

Rey walked out of the car and walked in through the doors to the Dojang, and nodded at Luke, who was helping a middle-aged man correct his posture as he attempted to do squats. She ignored the rest of the class, most of whom had seen her in passing a few times already, and went to the changing rooms. She swapped into her dobok with the kind of ingrained efficiency that would have surprised her once upon a time, and then she waited for their scheduled lesson.

Women trickled into the changing room around 2PM. She exchanged polite words with these women, but she couldn't really bring herself to do much more except nod and give each of them smiles that never reached her eyes. These were strange creatures to her, people who frequented the Dojang, her home, without any of the appreciation that came with long-exposure to the place. She watched them grab their things and leave, knowing that at least one of them probably wouldn't bother coming back.

Luke was always gaining and losing students for his regular classes. The problem, as he'd once said, was that most people wanted him to give them a secret - some hidden information that would allow them to wrest back their body from ages of mistakes and poor choices. It was hard to keep a group of attendants like that together, especially since most of them weren't all that inclined to change their ways.

 _Just like Ben_ , her mind oh so helpfully supplied.

She tried to crush that thought before it could sprout further doubts. She failed.

Ben hadn't called or texted since the night they'd been out at the park. She'd considered reaching out to him, but anything she would have said seemed to pale in comparison to the fact that Ben just didn't think of her as anything more than a kid.

She'd settled for occasionally staring at their past text conversations, only for her to eventually groan at how much of a stereotype she was being.

Her phone beeped from her bag, and she stood up, shaking her head.

Screw Ben.

_(Yes, please.)_

She scowled. Then whined. Then scowled again.

That stupid, idiotic, pig-headed, stubborn, malcontent boy.

Swallowing her pride, she stepped out of the locker room and met Luke, who had changed from his previous gym sweats into his freshly ironed dobok. He was kneeling in front of the mirror with his eyes closed, and seemed to be murmuring something to himself.

She took up a similar kneeling position beside him and waited. Luke had once made her sit and wait for an entire hour before he'd finished his little routine. Sometimes he did it quickly and sometimes it took a while. Rey had never asked him what it was he doing, but she got the impression that it was a very personal and deeply private matter to be privy to it, let alone pry into.

After a few seconds, Luke opened his eyes. He looked...tired.

"I hope you don't mind if we just sit and talk today, Rey," he said, his voice thready and fatigued. "I figured we could try something new today."

She shook her head. "Of course."

"Good," Luke muttered, eyes traveling from her expression in the mirror to the hands in front of him, "Good. My master used to do this with me. It always bored me to tears, but," his grin turned roguish, "I think it was his own way of asking me to slow down."

Rey's interest was piqued. Luke didn't talk about his training under her grandfather often, and, in truth, she was always hesitant to ask for fear of not meeting up to the expectations. She knew it was silly, but part of her was afraid to discover that she was a poor legacy of his old master, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

"What was he like?"

Luke seemed to take his time to consider her question, putting one hand on his chin. "Old," he said, after a while, "that was the first thing I thought when I met the man. Old and wise. Of course, now I'm pushing fifty, so I guess that first part caught up to me in the end didn't it?"

Rey couldn't stop the grin. "I guess you're still working on the second part?"

"Watch it, kid," Luke grumbled, "I can still make you run laps 'til you puke today if you're feeling like it."

She rolled her eyes as they turned in their spots to face each other. "You know, a threat is only worthwhile if you follow up on it once in a while."

A bushy brow raised in challenge. "Please, keep going my young student. Let's see how far down this hole you're digging goes."

Deciding discretion was the better part of valor, Rey changed the subject. "Was he the one you inherited the Dojang from, sir?"

"Less inherit, more suddenly thrust upon." The other man switched from a kneeling position to a cross-legged sitting position, "One day I come in, and he tells me I'm inheriting the thing. As if I didn't have any other life plans by then."

"Wait, you didn't?" The surprise in her voice was plain. "But I thought-"

"Thought I'd always aspired to be a fifty-something old man teaching a bunch of brats how  _not_  to accidentally brain each other during self-defense?" Luke's tone was lighthearted and humorous, and Rey belatedly realized that Luke was well aware of the opinions some of the less dedicated students he taught had of him. "No, I can say with a good amount of certainty that becoming a teacher was not in the plans."

"What did you want to be?" She was hesitant to ask him this. It was almost blasphemous to think of the Dojang - to think of Taekwondo - without Master Luke going around, correcting stances or sending a whip-crack retort to some muttered comment from across the room.

"Pilot," Luke admitted, a rueful smile on his face, "Turns out, I get airsick very easily. You'll find, Rey, that every once in a while you'll run afoul of some cosmic joke that really doesn't seem funny to you then, but will ten years down the line."

She raised an eyebrow. "Only ten?" Luke was as stubborn and wilful as they come, and Rey suspected that Ben had learned some of that stubbornness when living under his roof.

"Alright, fifteen years."

Rey giggled again, eliciting another grin from her unexpectedly earnest master.

Seeing as how he was answering her questions so candidly, Rey decided to ask a question that had taken root in her mind a while now.

"Master Luke?" she asked once she stopped giggling, "Is there a reason we haven't gone to tournament in a while?"

Luke crossed his arms and sighed. "Noticed that, huh?"

She fidgeted with the edge of her dobok, but didn't look away from him. "The senior belts mentioned that it was odd you'd stopped."

"Remember, you're a senior belt too," he pointed out.

Her palms itched but she resolutely did not look at them. "I- yessir. Sorry sir."

"None of that now," he dismissed with a wave. Another sigh. Another small frown appeared on his bearded face. "You deserve to know the truth. Especially since it's impacted your training so much."

A stillness befell him, and for a moment Rey thought he'd fallen asleep, only for him to break the silence by clearing his throat. "You should know, Rey, that within our school and our line, that it's not entirely typical for a grandmaster to practise with his students like I do. While he or she certainly can instruct, running through the motions as I do with Taekwondo classes is hard on a human body.

"Normally, a senior student or master is responsible for demonstrating the exercises," he explained, "while a grandmaster is available to correct forms or provide guidance. I have no trouble leading everything for now but-" and here, Rey was aware of just how many lines there were in his face, "-it's not sustainable, in the long term.

"Tournaments, especially multi-event types like the one you first went to, require a lot of logistical work to prepare for. There's communicating with tournament organizers regarding entry, fielding and making calls to the students, arranging transportation and triple-checking if there are any liability issues. The paperwork alone is very important and there are many important deadlines that can't be missed. Lodging and food should also be accounted for, especially in the case of overnight trips."

Rey's eyebrow was raised. "Overnight? We do those?"

"We  _used_  to do them," Luke gently reminded, "I'm afraid that since Ben left, I've had to take on all the old responsibilities I'd delegated to him since he'd graduated. Tournaments were largely left up to him. He would do the scouting for us before we left, and I'm afraid I haven't had the time to take that it up again."

"I see," she said, because that was all she could think of. She'd known, of course, that before he'd left, Ben had been working closely with Luke on the management and workings of the Dojang, but she hadn't considered just how much weight he was bearing. She could tell that Master Luke was holding stuff back, as he sometimes was wont to do when dealing with sensitive topics, but that just made her more curious. "Why not ask some of the other black belts to help?"

Luke shook his head, looking grave. "Because this place isn't their home," he rebuked, "Not like it was for Ben. Not like it is for me. We also don't have anyone nearing the level of experience Ben had when he left, let alone someone who looks like they're willing to stick around." He looked briefly pained for a second before he then said, "I'm afraid most of the black belts we have don't plan on sticking around long enough for me to start working with them."

His words boggled her mind. Rey couldn't imagine just stopping after all this time. After all the effort she'd put in.

"If you haven't noticed," he remarked, seeing her the disbelief in her expression, "We actually lose the most students whenever they promote to black belt. They think that just because they have a pretty piece of cloth that they're ready for anything and don't need to train anymore." The mournful note in his voice struck a chord with her.

She actually hadn't noticed that. She was usually too focused on her own worries to notice the drop off in attendance, since there was always a new batch of white belts joining them every couple of weeks to fill in the spaces.

"Have you- have you tried talking to Ben? Asked him to come back?" She hesitated to bring up the idea. Luke and Ben had both been mum regarding the events of Ben's departure, and she'd never told them about her presence that night. Even so, it didn't take a genius to see that there was still something strained between the two of them, even if they were hiding it for her sake.

Luke paused before shaking his head. "Ben made his opinion on me and my style very clear when he left. You could say it left an impression."

 _Yeah, an impression in the doorway_. Rey's stare flicked to the hallway leading to Luke's office. The carpenter had smoothed out the wall and replaced the doorframe where Ben's fists had taken chunks of it out, and now it was indistinguishable from the wall around it. It still didn't stop her from remembering how close Ben had come to seriously injuring someone that night.

"Can I help, then?" she offered.

Still sitting, Luke rolled his eyes playfully and arched his back to one side, eliciting a eye-wincing crack that had him exhaling in relief. "You're still young, kid," he chided, even if the corners of his mouth curved upwards, "Ask me when again when you come back from college. I'll see about setting something up tournament-wise though. It'd be a good experience for the lower belts."

* * *

It only took about ten minutes for Rey to decide that her high school graduation was going to be unbelievably boring. They'd packed them all like a can of sardines in the school gym, which needed the kind of renovation that involved dynamite and a wrecking ball. The chairs were the standard creaky metal ones they'd often used for music class and seminars, which also meant that the whole room was full of the squeaks of rubber-stoppered legs sliding against recently waxed floors.

She didn't know either the valedictorian or the salutatorian, but they both gave cliche speeches that were essentially ten minute explanations of how  _these are the best days of our lives_.

Rey seriously hoped that wasn't the case.

Admittedly, she could have made more of an effort to make friends and be involved in something other than Taekwondo, but...well, there really wasn't any part of her that regretted any of it.

And yet, as she looked around at her classmates, they were all tearing up. Well, except for Liam and Finn, but that was probably because Liam was busy on his phone and Finn was not-so-subtly glancing at Liam.

She fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat until it was time for her row to stand up and receive their diplomas. It took approximately a minute to shuffle across the stage, shake a few sweaty hands, collect a piece of paper, and rush back to her seat amidst the sea of black robes and unnecessary makeup.

How unbelievably boring.

Rey sighed. Maybe there was something wrong with her. Everyone was getting all sentimental and she just kept trying not to roll her eyes.

Thankfully she didn't have too long to consider her own apathy, because suddenly it was over and her classmates were tossing their caps, and she made a point of getting through the crowd to find Luke, who'd promised to take her out for dinner...

...with Principal Holdo.

Rey was proud of herself for not commenting on that tidbit when he'd informed her of the evening plans, and she was determined not to give in to her baser instinct and tease the man relentlessly, but it was getting to be impossible. As it was, she was convinced there was  _something_  going on between them.

It took almost the length of another graduation to wade through the crowds of people and find Luke, but when she did, her stomach dropped. She nearly turned around and ran, and it was only by virtue of the tidal wave of people pressing against her that she didn't.

Standing next to Luke, was Ben.

 _Ben_.

As in, best friend, broke her heart, treated her like a child, left her in the rain, then didn't talk to her for a month  _Ben_.

A thousand worst-case scenarios came and went in her mind before she decided to  _nope_ out of that situation. Unfortunately, she'd been spotted, and just like any of the regularly embarrassing parents around him, Luke started calling her over, both his arms waving gaily so she could better see him. Both of them wore nice button ups, Ben a sleek and expensive looking charcoal gray and Luke a lighter, ash-colored long sleeve with the cuffs down. The latter man seemed to be completely oblivious to the distinctly uncomfortable looks on both of their faces. Or maybe he did and was just exercising his  _loco parentis_  prerogative of not giving a shit.

In any case, there was a lot more screaming happening in her head now than there'd been in the gym earlier.

 

Shit.

Shit. Shit. _Shit._

She took a deep breath, slapped on a smile that wouldn't hold up to any scrutiny whatsoever, and walked up to Luke. She ignored the Ben-shaped space right next to him, because there was no way this was happening.

...right?

Luke wrapped her in a tight hug and spent a minute or two going on and on about how proud he was, which really, was very sweet, but it was like hearing someone underwater. Her gown had grown heavy on her, and some sane part of her realized that in the hubbub of the exiting crowd she'd lost her cap.

And then Luke let her go and stepped back, and she was left to drown in the awkwardness that was Ben trying to figure out if he should hug her, and Luke trying to figure out why Ben  _wasn't_  hugging her.

There was no way in hell she was sticking around long enough to let  _that_  situation come to a head, so she glanced up at Luke and blurted out, "Meet you at the diner, I'm gonna say bye to Rose!"

Luke blinked, which she took as assent, and if there ever were a time to use the word "scampered" it was then, because that's what she did. Her eyes skipped over the wax figure of Ben Solo (because there was no way that was the real one, right?) and before she knew it she was plunging head first into the stampede that was high-school seniors saying bye to their place of torment.

She thought she'd feel shame in her actions but it turned out her conscience had decided to take a holiday. Avoiding Ben was a plan completely made up on the spot, but it wasn't like the autopilot in her brain had anything better to do other than gibber incoherently at the sight of him after so long. She pushed through a group of rowdy senior boys who were grabbing each other's head and putting them in headlocks and hoped that maybe Ben would take the hint.

Of course, because making things easier was definitely not on his list of skills, Ben did the exact opposite. With a huff and a mutter, he plowed through the group of boys and steadily parted through the mass of people, not deterred in the slightest by any human obstacle.

She was not ashamed to admit that she was avoiding Ben. That was absolutely, 100% what was going on, and clearly he knew it. It only took him a moment to catch up to her, and he took her hand and pulled her back gently.

"Rey," he said, stopping her instinctive urge to pull away. His voice was confused, quiet and too many other things to focus on. "Are we okay?"

 _Not even close,_  a voice in her head wanted to scream at him.

Instead she paused and glared down at what little of the floor she could see amidst a sea of high-priced heels and dress shoes. It took her more effort and pride than she'd expected to croak out a simple and flat, "Yeah, sure."

He seemed relieved at that, and she almost felt bad.

Almost.

She also almost missed him.

_Almost._

His frown lightened then and  _damnit_  if the tiny little smile he gave her wasn't a sight for sore eyes. However, it also re-ignited the flaring spike that was in her chest.

Rey groaned. Okay, so she really,  _really_  missed him. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and stomp on his foot all at the same time, and part of her wondered if she could get away with it before reason came out with a machete and cut that little fantasy down.

She decided to test out the whole  _almost-adult_  thing instead, and answered honestly, "Actually, no. We aren't. Not really."

His smile dropped, and judging by the expression on his face, she may as well have slapped him.

"Oh," he said quietly after a moment, "Uh...okay." He swallowed hard, and replied, "I'm sorry I came without asking you first, but Luke invited me, and-" he hesitated, and sighed, "Sorry, I'll go."

She watched his shoulders slump, and she stood there as he slowly turned and started to walk away. Somehow even his back showed that he looked like a kicked puppy.

Already hating herself for it, Rey cleared her throat and said, "Hey, Ben?"

He turned quickly, a weary, but hopeful expression on his face.

Damnit. How could she keep up this whole  _you suck and you're the worst_  thing if she didn't actually think that? If Rey was being honest with herself, she missed his friendship, and suddenly she wasn't sure her pride was worth missing out on more of it. Especially since she already had way too much experience with what a Ben Solo-less life was like. The past month had been a painful reminder of back when she'd blown up at him for leaving the Dojang, and she found that it still sucked about as much as getting punched in the chest did.

So she took another deep breath, and resigned herself to being the bigger person between the two of them (which was funny, considering the man had more than half a foot on her). "Want to join us for dinner? Principal Holdo's coming and I'm pretty sure she and Luke are a thing."

That seemed to surprise him. "Wait, Amilyn...and  _Luke?"_

"Yeah," Rey bit her lip and looked away, feeling awkward and ungainly in her overly large gown and missing cap. "I could use the company. I don't really want to be a third wheel at my graduation dinner."

Truth be told, she didn't give a crap if she were even a fifth wheel. She just needed a plausible excuse beyond  _I miss you_  to get the man to spend some time with her, even if he was infuriating.

After a moment, a wide, brilliant smile broke out on his face, and damn if it didn't make her heart skip a beat.

Rose's voice echoed in her head as she strained to return the smile he so easily gave.

_I think, maybe someday, there could be something there. Between you two. But I don't think you'd ever have a healthy relationship if something started now._

She wanted him. She wanted to be with him. But maybe Rose was right - maybe she'd just have to suck it up and wait a while.

* * *

If Rey thought that her first round of senior testing would prepare her for the second time, she was quickly disavowed of that notion somewhere around the second hour of the first day of testing. Luke had opted for something a little less leg-destroying this time. Their testing had started earlier than usual, and after miserable ten-mile jog that lasted most of the morning, Luke had brought them to a clearing in the forest surrounding Coruscant, where a friend of his had been waiting with a U-Haul filled with wrist-, leg-, and chest weights.

After strapping on about twenty to thirty extra pounds per person, Luke had made them jog back to the Dojang. While normally a breeze compared to the ten mile sprint from hell they'd just done, everyone's balance had been thrown off with the extra baggage, and what should have only taken under an hour to finish had everyone gasping and struggling to complete it by hour two.

Fortunately, he'd dismissed them for the day after that. Rey had foregone any shower and collapsed on the little couch in their apartment. She awoke hours later, her arms and legs oscillating between  _Kill me now_ and  _I hate that man_ , and stiffer than a plank of wood.

Regular promotion had been blissfully simple in comparison after she'd gotten past all the lactic burn and buildup in her limbs, and now they were moving on to sparring.

She was just in the middle of putting on her hogu and fumbling with the strings on the back when she felt step up behind her and move her hands out of the way. Startled, she craned her neck to see Jess tying her strings.

In spite of her and Poe's best efforts, most of the people in the Dojang had never really forgotten her actions during the times when she'd lost control, and while normally Taekwondo wasn't a social activity, the gap between her and her compatriots was never as apparent as when it was time to put on their gear.

Rey stared at Jess and the intense, almost focused expression on her face, before she faced the front again.

"Thanks," she muttered.

A pressure along her ribs told her that Jess wass tightening the strings of her gear. Rey inhaled and exhaled, testing her breathing before raising a hand with a thumbs up. She felt, more than saw, Jess' ensuing nod and subsequently her tying of the strings. Once she was done, Rey felt the slap against the side of the hogu, signaling time to turn around.

They didn't say anything as Rey grabbed the hogu Jess preferred and started helping the girl get into her own gear.

When she got the chestplate over the head, Jess turned around, and suddenly it was Rey's turn to try her hand at it.

"Don't tell anyone else, but I'm not coming back after this promotion."

To Rey's credit, she didn't miss a beat as she began untangling the knots that had formed in the hogu strings. She didn't say a thing.

"Master Luke knows," Jess continued, her voice idle and subdued, "but no one else in the Dojang. Except for you."

Unexpected emotion touched Rey then. She and Jess had never gotten along according to the strictest definition of the word, but she'd been a constant - a rock to count on always being there. When most of her white belt group had left or quit, Jess had been there. When Rose had given up the art in favor of robotics, Jess had been there ready to challenge Rey in ways she hadn't faced before. Even when Ben, who Rey had never imagined leaving, disappeared and joined a mysterious gym weeks later, Jess had been there, caustic, judging, and never coddling.

Her throat was constricting with words she wanted to say, but Rey couldn't find the breath to speak. Instead, all she could do was slowly and deliberately start tying the strings to Jess' hogu.

"It's a pity," Jess said, apropos of nothing, "I was so close to getting my second dan here. It feels... _wrong_  to leave."

"Then why are you?" Rey said, finally finding her voice. She sounded harsh and spiteful, even to herself. "Why not stay?"

Jess shrugged, and even though she couldn't see her, Rey was sure she was sporting that unimpressed smirk she always directed at the lower belts.  _Come on then, show me something good_ , it said. Rey wanted to grab Jess in a headlock and run her into a wall every single time she saw that damnable expression. She'd had dreams of wiping that smirk off her face with a well placed hook-kick more than a few times.

She was going to miss her, Rey realized. It was a cognizance worthy of a eureka moment on its own, but it didn't surprise her.

"I've got a life beyond this place, Rey," Jess answered softly, standing upright as Rey smacked the hogu signaling the ok to turn around. "Dreams. A career to start. I got offered a job over in Europe. Fashion design and advertising."

Rey blinked and tried to imagine Jess wearing something other than the traditional white on white that was their dobok. She found she couldn't.

"Why are you telling me this, then?" Rey demanded. They both grabbed at their arm and shin guards and started putting them once Master Luke decided to introduce some of the lower belts to the concept of promise sparring. They could afford to take their time for now.

"Because I'd like to think that out of everyone here, you'd miss me the most," came Jess' frank reply.

"That makes no sense." Rey frowned. "I thought you hated me."

Jess looked over at Rey, disbelieving. "Hate you? Why would I hate you?"

"You kept looking down on me. Ever since we first started sparring, you've always acted like you were better than me."

Jess rolled her eyes. "I mean, I was."

Rey pointed a finger at her. "See? It's stuff like that."

"Calm down, Kenobi," her counterpart added, "I said ' _was'._  Or have you not noticed how much you've been kicking my ass lately?"

That drew Rey up short. "I- what?"

Jess' chuckled was both bitter and cynical. "God, I don't even rate that much, huh? In case you need a reminder, you've been winning most of our spars lately. The only times I have a chance are when you're distracted or on your period."

"Not in public." Rey hissed, blushing. She drew up close to Jess, who'd reached into her bag to grab her headgear. "And...I'm sorry, I guess. A lot's come up lately."

"Something to do with  _Mister Pretty_  and  _Miss Scary_  over there, I take it?" Jess' said wryly, gesturing with a free finger to the audience, where both Ben and Phasma had taken up residence. Luke had seemed a bit hesitant upon seeing them there at the start, but Rey hadn't gotten a chance to ask why in the hustle of setting up.

"He's part of it," Rey reluctantly admitted. She saw no reason to not speak frankly. By Jess' own admission they were never going to see each other again after today.

"Hmmm, well whatever happens, don't forget the most important lesson, I guess," Jess murmured, offering her bare knuckle to Rey as she put the headgear on.

Rey struggled to remember what she was talking about, but couldn't pinpoint any one specific lesson they'd learned that was 'most important'. "What's that?"

"When things get tough," Jess' melancholic smile turned into a vicious grin, "just kick 'em in the balls."

The laugh that escaped Rey surprised people around her, but none more than herself. With a confident smirk of her own, Rey softly punched on Jess' fist, completing the fistbump. When they parted, for perhaps the first time since she started sparring, Rey found herself eagerly awaiting a chance to face Jess.

And, as if knowing exactly what had been on her mind, Luke dismissed the white belts and in a demonstration that he knew  _something_  was up, he called both of them up, front and center.

They bowed to Luke, to the audience, and then to each other.

Their eyes met across from each other.

Rey nodded. Jess did the same.

And then they proceeded to kick the crap out of each other.

* * *

"Ben! Hey Ben!"

Rey turned to see who'd called. It was Poe, waving his hand up as he and his washed-in-the-sink hair flicked water droplets to the side as they made way through the Dojang.

Promotion had finished half an hour earlier, and everyone who'd tested had done so with a smile on their face. There was something invigorating and rejuvenating about putting themselves through the physical grinder for over six hours, nearly breaking body parts on each other during sparring, and shattering pieces of wood and cement with technique and perfection borne from long hours and more than a few tears. If she were a more jaded person, she'd liken it to a cult, but Rey didn't think cults much cared about the physical and spiritual wellbeing as much as Master Luke did.

She'd talked with Ben and Phasma earlier. The latter had complimented her on her killer instincts from her spar with Jess, and had even said that maybe one day Rey would be on her level. Rey had looked around, made sure Master Luke hadn't been looking, and then given her the finger, which had made the woman roar with laughter and ruffle her already mussed up hair.

Ben had been much more formal and stiff in his congratulations, which Rey had expected. Things still weren't one hundred percent perfect between the two of them, and she thought that maybe it would take a bit more time - time and effort and him growing up, before he would be able to look at her without being reminded of the mess that had been  _that_  conversation. Rey didn't have high hopes for the last of those three things. She loved the guy, but he was a bit too broody sometimes.

(Which was a problem, because apparently that was still totally her type. Ugh.)

Most of the higher belts had stayed behind to help clean up, with various audience members joining in. Ben and Phasma had stuck around even after talking with her, though it had looked like they were in deep conversation.

They were just leaving when Poe had come out from the locker room.

Ben watched stoically as Poe came to stand in front of him.

Feeling nervous for some indiscernible reason, Rey hid herself behind the pillar closest in the corner. Being behind one of these once again reminded her of the last time she'd been there. She remembered the silent, throat-gripping fear in seeing Ben's loss of control. The shake of the building as he tore through wood and plaster with his bare hands.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and banished the memories from her mind.

"Dameron, right?" Phasma said, subtly putting herself between the two old friends. "I don't think we've ever formally met, name's Phasma. With a 'Ph'."

Poe provided her with his usual charming smile. "We've met, but nice to formally meet you, Phasma with a 'Ph'. I'm Poe. You're the scary black belt lady I've heard so much about, aren't cha'? The one who scouts out tournaments for new students?"

The woman in question shrugged and gave him a lazily predatory grin. "I see I've made a name for myself."

"All good, I can assure you," Poe deflected smoothly, "In so far as you can call sniping students from other Masters 'good'."

Phasma shrugged in a what-can-you-do manner. "I'm just the emissary. It's not my fault if they end up accepting the offer."

Poe snapped his fingers as if in realization of something. "Ah I see, so you're just the pretty face then?"

Phasma stepped in close and suddenly it wasn't a woman standing over Poe but a lioness, stalking her prey. "Not as pretty as yours," she whispered, and Rey shivered. There were knives in her voice and every one of them was pointed in Poe's direction. "At least, until I'm done with you."

The two of them stared at each other. Rey felt the tension begin to mount, and the hairs on her arm prickle and raise with goosebumps. There were few people around, most of them seemed to be congregating around the entrance to Luke's office and the locker rooms. No one was looking over at the group of black belts  _oh so subtly_  having their pissing contest on the Dojang floor. Master Luke had retreated into his office, after having exchanged his own stilted words with Ben, presumably to finish up some paperwork.

Finally, when it seemed like things were actually going to come to blows, both Phasma and Poe separated. Each laughing to themselves at some apparently silent conclusion they'd drawn of the other.

"Damn, you're one scary woman," Poe said, chuckling and rubbing his arms. "Remind me not to piss you off."

"You're not so bad yourself," Phasma made an exaggerated motion of blowing him a kiss, "Let me know if you're ever looking to challenge yourself. I'm pretty sure I could show you a thing or two."

"Sorry, you're not my type," Poe replied, his reply by rote.

A single elegant eyebrow raised in his direction. "I was talking about sparring, dumbass."

"Oh well in that case-"

"What do you want, Poe?" Ben interjected finally. He'd been watching the whole exchange with the kind of tight-jaw and twitching brow Rey had long learned to read as him suppressing any overly visible annoyance.

"I just wanted to ask you some stuff, man," Poe explained, sliding up beside Ben with his characteristic grace, "It's been a while since we've hung out. Want to grab some milkshakes over at Maz's place? My treat."

Ben's shoulder sagged with….relief?

"Sorry," he mumbled, trying and aiming for a grin that ended up somewhere between tired and apologetic, "things have been pretty crazy at work. I actually had to skip a day to make it to this." He looked like he'd just swallowed something foul-tasting. "My Master wasn't happy I did that."

Concerned, Poe tried to meet Phasma's eyes, who just so happened to step away that moment to start admiring the ripped matted walls and smudged windows. Seeing no help there, Poe tried putting a hand on Ben's shoulder, only for Ben to conveniently roll his shoulder, as if stretching.

"Hey?" Poe asked, voice serious, "Is everything ok?"

"Seriously, man, I'm  _fine._ " Ben punctuated the last word with a eye roll worthy of an Emmy for best body language. "I'm sorry I've been flaky. We'll hang out some other time, alright? You can even tell me about how all your opponents took pity on you in your last tournament."

"Fuck you and in the horse you rode in on Ben," Poe shot back, genuine amusement in his toothy grin. Then his expression turned serious once more, "Actually, as charitable as filling your sad grey life with stories of my awesomeness might be, I've been meaning to ask you something."

"Oh?" Ben was now truly curious, from what Rey could tell.

Poe moved to the side, on the other side of Ben now, blocking her view so that she could no longer see Ben's expression. "Yeah."

"Well?" Ben's impatience was starting to flare again. "What is it?"

Rey saw Poe shift his weight from side to side. "Why'd you leave Rey out in the middle of nowhere a few weeks back?"

A pair of sharp and sudden intakes of breath reached Rey's ears. Both she and Ben had been taken by surprise.

"...I don't think that's any of your business," he said after few seconds of utter silence.

"Like hell it's not," Poe contested hotly. "Ben, she was soaking wet and she'd been crying for a while by the time I got there. When two of my friends are hurting each other like that I make it my business. What the hell happened between you two?"

"It's not important," Ben brushed off brusquely.

"Dude, come on man you've gotta-"

"I said  _drop it._ "

Rey had to bite her lip to stop the instinctive urge to gasp at the tone. Ben was rude and a bit rough around the edges with basically everyone, but he and Poe had always spoken with a sort of camaraderie she'd found herself envious of. To hear him talk like that now was off-putting.

"Fine," Poe bit out. She could see him clenching a fist. "But you gotta' talk to someone about this stuff dude. Maybe not me. But someone."

"I'll be fine," Ben placated. Judging by Poe's derisive snort he found that assurance about as convincing as Rey had. "In any case, I need to get going. I've got an early shift tomorrow." He stepped around Poe and finally she got a look at his expression. Stolid. Controlled. It was only the quiver to his lower lip that told Rey he was feeling anything at all. "Phasma, come on. I'm driving you back, remember?"

"Coming, Benji boy!" the woman replied cheekily.

Ben held the door for her, and as she stepped through the exit, Rey heard a cell phone ring. She watched as Ben pulled out a phone from his back pocket - a different phone from the one he used normally, she couldn't help but note - before taking one look at the screen and swiping to accept the phone call.

"Kylo Ren speaking," he started. And that was when the door closed, leaving the only sound in the Dojang being the faint tinkling of the welcome chimes.

* * *

It was a week later when Rey walked in to the dinner, only to come face to face with a man she'd never wanted to see again. Oddly enough, it seemed appropriate that Duran Duran's  _Hungry Like the Wolf_  had just started courtesy of the jukebox.

Grandmaster Snoke sat at the counter, sipping and finishing off his coffee with all the methodical motions of a spider weaving its web. He wore a dark suit the color of an empty night sky, with an undershirt so white and clean it hurt to look at. He was reading from a newspaper someone had left in the diner, an old issue that Rey had forgotten to toss the day before.

She froze, as prey is sometimes wont to do in front of predator, and she knew in bottom of her gut, in the smallest cell of her fingernails, that he was a predator. Did she bow? The rules on meeting outsider Grandmasters weren't very clear to her, and the mere thought of exposing her neck again, without the protection of her own Grandmaster, left her feeling cold and short of breath.

He wasn't looking in her direction though. Taking a chance Rey gave him the quickest and sloppiest of bows she'd ever done, before looking up from the ground.

"I've always found music a bit of a waste of time," he said, still admiring the paper in front of him. After putting the paper down and meticulously folding it up he turned to look at the jukebox in the corner. "Just sounds and words that play up their own importance. I'd much rather a simple drum beat if anything."

He turned to look at her, and exposed his teeth. They were clean, perfect, and ordered. The mouth of a monster who only needed his words.

"I just learned that you are staying with Grandmaster Skywalker from the waitstaff here," he continued, and Rey wondered when the last time she blinked was. "Please, pass on my regards to him. And remind him that my offer is still on the table."

And then he got up, walked by her without even sparing her a glance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Desire, fire, hunger, love, and a struck nerve.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> AttackoftheDarkCurses: This was very much a transitional chapter, and the next one will be...fun. Yeah, fun's the right word. So remember how we specifically said "No time jumps, no long separations?" That means these two idiots get to be SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE for a while. (Cue cackling).
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: So this is a bit calmer overall after the fustercluck that was the last chapter. The conversation between Luke and Rey was something we wanted to have because in truth we need more moments where Luke is vulnerable and not just this omniscient Taekwondo fount of knowledge. He's fifty plus in this fic, and while there are some absolutely amazing people out there who practise martial arts at that age, his job is to basically teach and exercise, which can be tiresome and draining on a person.
> 
> I'm pretty sure this chapter has so much foreshadowing. Like, wow. In retrospect this could end up being one of the more important chapters, but I guess we'll have to see how things go in the end, won't we?
> 
> Say bye to Jess. She's going….going….gone. She was never really a bad person. Just a bit over competitive, which I understand is common for some women, but it's not like I can cast stones. Some men are just as stupid. Which should be plenty obvious considering Ben's reaction in this story to being confronted by Poe.
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 
[ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/) 



	27. Bodan, Second Stripe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a fun one...enjoy!
> 
> We have some pretty cool art from Chapter 12 thanks to @kindnessinpain2000:
> 
> [ Link Here ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/176071958487/thebuildingsnotonfire-kindnessinpain2000-are) 
[ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


For the first time in what felt like quite a while, Rey woke up in a good mood.

She'd narrowed it down to three possible reasons for her sudden weightless elation. First, Luke had prepped the  _perfect_  batch of coffee that morning - a dark and aromatic concoction that had reached into her soul and filled her with light when she drank it. His cooking skills were still a few steps shy of hazardous waste, with the exception of the really simple dishes, but bless that man's taste in coffee beans.

Second - and it had taken a frustratingly long amount of time to realize it - she was suddenly free of any school-related obligations. It was highly unlikely she'd ever have summer homework again, and the next time she sat down in a class, she'd be in college, where she'd no longer have to stick to a five paragraph format when writing essays. She just knew it was going to be wonderful.

The third and most important reason was undoubtedly the fact that she'd be turning eighteen in less than a week.

If her life were a cartoon, there would have been an accompaniment from a chorus of angels when she'd realized this. As it was, Rey had made do with little hum and a whistle and a shake in her step for an entire day at the diner.

It was an important birthday, she reasoned. Suddenly,  _the system_  would be a thing of the past, and she'd no longer need to be wondering if or when Plutt might show up with a list of angry demands. Even if she hadn't seen him in more than a year - hell, with how comfortable the apartment above the Dojang was there were times Rey even forgot that she'd ever lived anywhere else - she could admit to an unexpected degree of relief at finally crossing that milestone. Leia had already arranged to set in motion the end of that man's time, and the first of Rey's meetings with the people she'd talked about was coming up soon.

The birthday also made her eligible for Black Belt testing, whenever Luke decided she was ready for it. While technically those under eighteen in their Dojang could test for Black Belt, Master Luke ascribed to a conservationist philosophy and only started testing people for candidacy when they were of age. She'd likely have another two or three promotions to go before then, but just the fact that she was  _eligible_  had her nearly jumping for joy.

And maybe - just  _maybe_ , the birthday meant that Ben might treat her a bit more like an adult. Likely not in the way she wanted him to, but at this point, any improvement would be a success. Things were still awkward and stilted between them, but at least they weren't avoiding each other. It didn't meant she hadn't thought of slapping him silly for everything, though.

Her good mood was obvious to Maz, who'd taken to chuckling in between orders as she watched Rey skate around the diner floor. Some enterprising customer had opted for a  _Cheap Trick_ song and before she knew it, she was swinging and rocking to the tune. Rey was so euphoric that she'd finally managed a small spin - it was a far cry from the scrambling and teetering motions she'd made when she had first started wearing the obnoxiously pink skates.

Rey was so used to Maz pitching in with her own laughs and head bobs, she'd started tuning out her witch-y cackles, but it wasn't until she heard the familiar throaty laugh that told her she her suddenly had an audience. The only warning she got was that the bell over the door started jingling.

She spun in place - driving an ugly scratch into Maz's tile floor that she  _knew_  was going to come out of her paycheck later - and felt her face start turning a deep red when she saw Phasma and Ben at the door.

"No, come on, don't stop!" Phasma laughed, "It's a good song!"

(Rey sincerely hoped that walking in on her while dancing to music did not prove to be a hereditary thing. She didn't know if she could handle much more of these Solo men doing this to her.)

Rey's response to Phasma was to roll her eyes and stick her tongue out, which just garnered her some more snickers. She noticed, not for the first time, that Ben didn't instantly walk over to give her a tight hug. Instead, he seemed to study her carefully with an odd, undecipherable expression on his face, and made no effort to move from the doorway, which they were now blocking.

That was starting to get really old.

Despite her instincts, she didn't comment, and instead chose to gesture toward one of the booths, saying, "I'll be right over."

Phasma's smile was warm and her nod sharp, in contrast to Ben's perfunctory glance around the diner. He had to be physically prodded to start moving towards the booth. He seemed to be very distracted.

Maz chose that moment to shout out "Order up", which was just as well, because it gave Rey a moment to center herself before she had to face Ben. Turning around to grab the plates, she took a deep breath and made sure to take her time gliding across the floor to the pick-up window, deliberately counting to ten. Awkward as things still were, she was just going to have to suck it up and deal.

* * *

Phasma knew she was observant. It was half the reason Snoke had sought her out for his gym in the first place. It helped that she had an eye for talent, and like she'd told Dameron before, it wasn't on her if people chose to accept the offer to train under a man who'd worked with several Olympians. She had an eye for body language and all the usual tells and intonations a normal person didn't think of when they thought they could get away with a bald-face lie. She knew the moment someone was going to pivot, the moment their guard was down, the moment they thought they had her beaten. It hadn't earned her a lot of friends until her college years but she was fine with that. If people couldn't handle a little challenge now and then that wasn't on her.

She'd noticed a few things the moment she'd walked into the diner.

Rey had good taste in music, and, judging by the way she hadn't fallen on her ass when they'd surprised her, she had a good grasp on the kinesthetics of her body.

Second was the fact that Rey either needed a new uniform, or, she'd figured out how to get better tips. Sure, it was summer, but her high-waisted black shorts were just a  _bit_  too short (especially considering the diner's recently improved AC), her tucked-in sleeveless button up was possibly lacking a button at the top, and the small star-shaped pendant she wore captured the eye and directed it... _well_ , it was certainly a flattering look, but Phasma had a feeling the protective streak in Master Skywalker wouldn't have approved.

Then there was the fact that Ben had started acting  _more_  awkward the second they'd walked in. His shoulders had jerked, twitched, and then his face settled on cross between unapproachable and conflicted, and that was what truly piqued her interest.

When they settled into a booth that was a bit too low for her taste (though at 6'3", most things were a bit low for her), Phasma's eyes narrowed at him.

Ben was staring at something behind her.

Normally, she would ask if he'd gotten hit in the head one too many times earlier, but reminding him of his mistakes - and Ben practically considered getting hit in a fight a sin, let alone a mistake - stopped being her go-to months ago. The man had been getting awfully touchy lately, and it didn't help that their Master had recently started working with him in person.

"Ahem."

No reaction.

 _Cough._  "Earth to Kylo? Hello?"  _Cough._

She got about as much of a response out of him as a statue.

She knew for a fact that she'd get his attention if she called him  _Ben,_  but getting her head bitten off really didn't seem all that appealing. Especially since he'd specifically asked her not to do so.

Phasma sighed, rolled her eyes, and settled for snapping her fingers in front of Ben's face.

Finally the idiot came to, his eyes instantly snapping to hers. His brow furrowed. "What's up?"

She frowned, and tilted her head. "What's with you? You're being weird."

"It- It's nothing," he stammered, his cheeks turning pink. And what a revelation  _that_  was.

_Ben Solo, blushing? Had she landed on Mars?_

Phasma was about to call him out on that  _nothing_  bullshit, but Rey's soft voice interrupted, saying, "Sorry that took so long guys, there was a spill by the jukebox. Had to clean it up before I came over - are you just ordering your usuals?"

She watched curiously as Ben refused to look up from the menu, and just gave a clipped, "Yes."

He was steadfast in his refusal to lookup, and after a second of uncomfortable silence she saw the tint of red creep up to the tips of his ears. He would have looked absolutely adorable had Phasma not seen him take on three of the guys at the gym in a Taekwondo spar...and  _win._

After another moment of hesitation at her friend's weirdness, Phasma smiled up at Rey and nodded, her smile broadening further when she noticed how  _happy_  the girl seemed.

Call her crazy (and many people had, herself included), but Phasma wasn't all that used to seeing Rey be that happy. Sarcastic? Sure. Grumpy? Yep. Frustrated with Luke? Of course, but happy was a bit of a new one for her. It looked good on her.

"I'll have whatever he's having," Phasma said, jerking her chin at the stewing mess of a person across from her. He didn't notice of course, because he was still busy memorizing a menu he probably hadn't needed since he was thirteen. "What's up with you though?"

Rey finished scribbling the order and put the notepad in one of her pockets. "What do you mean?"

"You're," she gestured to her, as if trying to capture the aura of unicorns and puppies around her, "smiling. I didn't even know you could smile. Good day?"

"Good week, is more like it," Rey answered, and Phasma could have sworn the girl was actually a little bubbly, "It's my birthday on Friday, and Maz gave me the night off."

 _That_  was when Ben took in the kind of breathe that makes one think of the wolves and little pigs. It was a slow-starting sussurrant thing that would have woken a man from a coma with how intense it was. His eyes had moved on from the menu to a stain in the surface that seemed to fascinate him.

_Interesting._

Phasma added that to the list of things to keep an eye on, but for now she looked back to Rey and tried to keep the sardonic amusement down. Birthdays had long lost their luster to Phasma, but that didn't mean they had to Rey. "Congrats on surviving another year then, I guess. Any good plans? Actually, how old will you be?"

"Eighteen, and, uh... _no."_

The dejection in the girl's tone was obvious, which might have been what finally prompted Ben to interrupt, even if he didn't tear away from the hole he was burning in the table with his eyes.

He ran a hand through his hair and asked, "Right. Any idea what you want to do for it?"

Phasma would have swapped her fourth dan for a fresh new white belt if that wasn't the most uncomfortable tone she'd ever heard from him.

Despite that though, Rey's face turned as pink as her skates. She started sliding side-to-side, as if she was going to bolt any second.

"Nope, no ideas. Haven't thought of anything."

Now it was Phasma's turn to blink because  _what in the fresh hell was going on?_  An  _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_  scenario entered her mind, but she brushed it aside. She mentally reviewed her plans for the weekend, and, in an act of compassion Hux would have espoused as a miracle for weeks afterwards, decided to put an end to the tension. She cleared her throat to grab their attentions, and said, confidently, "Well then, just leave it me."

"You?" Rey probably didn't mean for her tone to come off as disbelieving and nervous. Phasma took as a compliment nevertheless. "Wait- why would you-"

Ah. Better to cut her off before she could back down.

"Because I'm bored," Phasma supplied drolly, as if that was reason enough. She didn't miss how the concern on the younger girl's face deepened into something approaching actual worry. She decided to lace her next response with enough respectability to assuage that. "Eighteen's a big one, kid. Trust me, I'll make sure we have a good time."

Rey was clearly trying to get Ben's attention, if the side-swaying and the suddenly urgent grabbing motions of the menus was any indication. As was to be expected, he didn't get the hint.

Phasma, unfazed, handed her the menu with a single raised eyebrow in amusement. Rey flushed further and looked down for a second before plastering a billboard worthy smile on. "That sounds like...fun. I-I'll be right back with your orders."

Neither Ben and Rey had made eye contact, the whole time. Phasma winked and shot her a smile as she turned to skate off, even as she got progressively worse feeling like she was stepping further into actual  _feelings_  territory with what she'd just bitten off.

Turning to Ben, she found that he'd finally lifted his eyes from the table, and was now not-so inconspicuously watching after their departed waitress.

She tried to keep her voice casual as she said, "So, what crawled up your ass and died all of a sudden?"

He didn't hesitate to ignore her and change the direction of their conversation.

* * *

Rey wasn't  _entirely_  convinced the spot Phasma picked was somewhere Luke would approve of. In truth, she had no idea what Phasma had said to Luke, but when he heard that the woman was planning to bring Hux, Ben, and Poe along with Rey, Finn, and Rose, he'd granted permission. Truth be told, it was only when Phasma had finally volunteered to invite Poe that Luke had finally assented, which made Rey wonder what world he lived in that he thought Poe would be a better choice to have around than Ben.

Not that she'd really needed permission. After all, eighteen was eighteen, right?

But, as much as part of her felt the need to prove her adulthood (and this need had absolutely  _nothing_  to do with anyone in particular), she knew logically that, while she still lived with Luke, it was pretty much a  _my way or the highway_  sort of situation.

 _Just as well,_  a voice in her head said. As frustrating as it could be, there was something nice about having someone who cared so much about her wellbeing.

Phasma led their little party in past a tall, broad-shouldered, grumpy looking man who was standing at the door. He wore a plain black t-shirt that threatened to strangle him with how tight and taut the mouth for the arms pulled at his skin. The man looked like he could do arm curls with her whole body if he could just wrap a big meaty paw around her. Seeing him had made Rey feel very, very, underage, which was just unfair considering it was her birthday. Upon seeing the equally tall blonde in their group, one of his eyebrows raised, and an odd, almost  _goofy_  smile appeared on the man's face. Rey watched as Phasma winked at him, and the man shook his head, chuckled, and just let them in, no questions asked.

Rey wondered if this was what stepping down into the underworld felt like. Barely a word of protest, just a seedy guard who welcomes you if you look pretty enough.

Not for the first time, Rey wondered if associating with Phasma would have long-term consequences on her moral certitude. She knew, from the years of living with Plutt, that bars were a lot more lenient towards women than men, but it still felt wrong to just casually break federal law with just a wink.

The entrance turned into a dark, dimly lit stairway that led further down than the building outside implied. A warm lazy glow emanated from down below and once again her traitorous mind supplied her with the image of walking further and further down into the maws of hell. It was patently ridiculous, but ridiculousness did little to stop the chill she felt as they got lower.

She was following behind Hux, who'd been occasionally giving her kind smiles and nervous glances, and when they reached the bottom they entered into a large open room, barely lit except for a dozen or so hanging painted-glass decorative lights that bathed the room in a carmine hue the color of wine. Most of the patrons were either crowded around a bar (a  _bar_ , the upright and conscientious voice in her head said,  _Luke would not be impressed with this)_ , or around the…

_Karaoke stage._

Phasma glanced at Rey's awed expression and grinned.

"I had a feeling," the woman nodded. "You seemed pretty chum with that jukebox when we say you the other day. Ky-  _Ben_ here, didn't seem to have any ideas, so I thought we'd all give this a shot."

Finn, Poe, and Rose had finished piling in behind her and were now also gaping at the room. The karaoke stage was a big gaudy-looking thinking, with dollar-store drapes and a fake theatre curtain behind it, probably there to lend an air of authenticity to it. There were a trio of televisions set into the floor of the stage, angled to face the singer wherever they may look while under the spotlight.

Ben had opted for a long-sleeved dark gray sweater that night, a fact that Rey's brain made special mention of whenever her gaze seemed to flit over in his direction. He finished doing a long-evaluating look of the room, before he crossed his arms (Oh goddammit, weren't her hormones supposed to get better, not worse, with age?) and said, in his family's typical drawl, "Phas, you brought us to a  _karaoke bar?_ Seriously?"

"Emphasis on the bar," Hux laughed. "Alright, fuck it, if I'm stuck listening to drunk people sing karaoke all night, I'm getting a drink."

"I'll join you," Ben muttered, half to himself, half out-loud. He gave Rey another look before he left, giving her a polite, but hurried, "Have fun, sweethea-"

He seemed to choke towards the end there. Instead, he shut his mouth, turned on his heel and made for the bar.

"What's with him?" Finn wondered from behind Rey.

A sudden but muffled thump followed by a groan, told Rey that someone (probably Rose) had elbowed him.

Clapping her hands quite loudly, Phasma dragged all their attention back to her.

"Alright, speaking of drinks," she said, "You four-" she gestured to Poe, Rey, Finn, and Rose, "if I see a  _single_  one of you drink anything you shouldn't, I'll be more than happy to let your respective guardian, Master, parent, neighbor, kindergarten teacher -  _whatever_  - know. I'm not drinking tonight. Someone who drives needs to stay sober, and I thought I'd volunteer so that those two-" she jerked her head toward Hux and Ben, who were already chatting with a bartender, "can embrace whatever weird bromance they have going on."

She spoke with the kind of voice Rey imagined came in handy with leading a Taekwondo class, one that promised whips and chains and hours of the kind of searing burn in your arms and legs that made grown men bawl like newborns. Rey and her friends seemed to unconsciously straighten up on hearing it, and that mulishly difficult part of herself wanted to pointlessly challenge her anyways.

"I drive too. I brought my car," Poe pitched in after a moment, seeming mildly offended that he'd been grouped with the not-yet-college-kids.

"Exactly," Phasma smiled, looking all the more like the Grinch on the eve of his heist, "Between the two of us, we can get everyone home with all their limbs mostly intact, so we should be all set. Now, we all have each other's phone numbers just in case anyone gets split off from the group, so...what am I forgetting…" she paused. "Right. Look, this is going to come off as sexist but you should know me better than that. Dameron, help me keep an eye on everyone. Rey and Rose, especially. I'm going to keep an eye on all of you, but a second set of eyes can't hurt."

Rey scoffed, "Do you really think I can't handle myself?"

"I know for a fact that you can," Phasma gave her a knowing look. "But the reality is that, as a young woman, you're more likely to be harrassed at a place like this, and I'd much rather have Poe step in if that happens." She seemed to debate a bit before she smirked, adding, "Poe knows how to de-escalate a situation. "

"I can de-escalate!" Rey protested hotly, even as some rational voice inside her grimaced at the hypocrisy.

Phasma's snort was both grating in its swiftness and defeating in its succinctness.

"Rey, don't get me wrong, but I do not want to have to explain to the paramedics why some guy got his trachea punched in when he copped a feel." The fact that she could see Poe nodding along did not endear the man to Rey right then. "Also, I like this place and, surprising as it might seem, they like me here too. They literally make the best Moscow Mules in town."

Rey did not stomp her foot. She really wanted to stomp on Phasma's though, even as she understood where the woman was coming from.

"Fine, just know you're a bitch for phrasing it that way."

* * *

Accepting another drink from the bartender, Ben noticed a distinct change in song choice and let out a little sigh of relief. An hour in and all they'd heard were songs were probably from a Buzzfeed  _Top 25 Karaoke Songs for People Who Can't Sing_ article.

He assumed it was a random patron who picked it, because it was older - a song that occasionally popped up on the classic radio station Luke listened to and one the two of them had unashamedly sung along to back when it had just been the two of them, whether on some errand together or some random trip Luke wanted company on. It wasn't a song he would have expected anyone in the group to pick, with the exception of Rey, and as she'd not sung a thing all night, he felt himself breathe a little more easily. He closed his eyes and let the words wash over him. Whoever had picked the song had a singing voice like honey - smooth, and just a bit husky. Definitely an amateur, but karaoke didn't care if you were Patti Smith or Jerry Seinfeld, and for a moment he could see her in his mind's eye - a dark alluring figure singing about desire, fire, hunger, and love.

Ben swirled the whiskey in his glass and chuckled, clinking his glass with Hux's on the counter, who'd turned around on his seat to watch. "I hope she's as gorgeous as her voice."

When Hux snorted and made an odd barking-laughter noise, Ben glanced over and saw his friend's amused expression.

> _"Come on now, try and understand;_
> 
> _The way I feel when I'm in your hands."_

" _Patti Smith_ ," Hux chuckled. "Interesting choice. Not at all what I would have expected. I had no idea Rey could sing."

"Yeah, she likes classic ro- wait,  _what?_ "

Ben's eyes went wide when he fully finished processing Hux's comment, and he turned on his barstool to face the stage behind him. They weren't close to the small stage, and the lighting was piss-poor even for a bar, but her shining eyes were unmistakable. And the way smiled as she moved her hips in tight jeans and casually tossed back her softly curled hair-

_Stop. Now._

Ben very deliberately bit the inside of his cheek. Hard.

_Yeah. That's still Rey on stage._

There was ice in his chest. A burning ice in his lungs and a fire so old in his heart that is was cold to the touch. He reached back around and downed the rest of his glass, not even bothering to test it. The subsequent eye-watering and sizzling of his throat did nothing to help.

_Fuck._

He let out an undecipherable, strangled noise before turning back to the bar quickly.

He sputtered for a moment before grabbing Hux's drink and finishing that off too, finally muttering, "Does even she know what that song's about?"

"Language," Hux scolded playfully. He'd had a few drinks, matching Ben shot for shot, he was at the point where he seemed thoroughly amused by the expression of disbelief his friend wore. An alarmingly large part of Ben wanted to punch that smirk off his face. "I have a feeling she got exactly the reaction she was looking for. Also, you're getting me another drink."

> _"Because the night belongs to lovers,_
> 
> _Because the night belongs to us."_

He smirked at Ben. " _Lovers_ , huh?"

"Hux," Ben's gaze darkened. His blackened heart pitched with something vicious as those words, in that awful, taunting voice of Hux's, seemed to clash violently with Rey's dulcet tones. " _Don't_. Things  _just_  stopped being really awkward, and I don't need anyone making them worse."

He could feel the point between his shoulder blades itch, and he resisted the human urge to check. It had been a couple of months since the he'd gotten the tattoo, but ever since it only occasionally got like this, mostly during fights. It pissed him off to no end, and that helped during the fights, but it was very annoying when he was supposed to be enjoying himself.

He stared directly at the fresh drink the bartender had filled quickly, possibly having overheard their conversation. He wondered if he could sneak out early. It wasn't like Rey needed him to be there. He didn't need to turn around again to see that she was having the time of her life. People were  _cheering_  for her - the girl whose essays he'd once had to review after she got caught selling homework to dumbass fourteen year-olds.

_She wasn't fourteen anymore._

Ben groaned, "I did  _not_  need this tonight."

"You know, she's very good," Hux commented. "I'm impressed. The crowd definitely likes her."

"Considering what she's singing about, I'm not surprised the crowd of mostly drunken men approves," Ben complained. He took a look at the man to his side and couldn't help but note the loose necktie and beer belly.

The spot on his back prickled again. The man clearly wasn't him, but Ben couldn't help but draw similarities between him and Unkar Plutt...

Hux laughed quietly, interrupting his thoughts before they could take shape. His voice was seven kinds of mocking and he leaned over, grabbed the still-full glass in front of Ben and muttered, "Are you including yourself in that category?"

A particularly loud cheer went off at a table nearby. Ben snatched the glass back and took a gulp from it.

" _Fuck off_ , Hux," he growled. He tried to keep his voice low so as not to disturb others, but the snarl in his chest had lent a weight to that sentence - one that seemed to have caught the bartender's attention.

"You know what, Ben," Hux snapped, "She obviously has feelings for you, especially if what I saw in the laundry room was any indication, and-"

Ben groaned again, remembering that day.

> " _Because the night belongs to lovers,_
> 
> _Because the night belongs to us."_

"-honestly I'm really starting to sympathize with her. I told you to  _talk with her_ , not treat her like a  _child!_  You realize what you've done, right?" Hux finished by wresting the glass from Ben's hands a second time, leaving them empty and lonely.

Ben ignored him in favor of signaling for another drink.

"I'm sure you'll tell me," he finally said, dryly.

"I sure will," Hux replied, "All you've done is make it so she feels like she has to  _prove_  that her feelings are legitimate. And honestly, at this point I believe they are. You have  _no_ idea how stupidly you handled that situation."

Stupid. That was something Ben had contended with being his entire life. He'd never been good at much except for fighting, and now look where he was. Starting to find a girl seven years his junior attractive? Yeah, that sounded pretty fucking stupid to him.

He needed to get home, his ego said. Snoke was going to ream him over for the problems he'd run into facing that judoka earlier. It wasn't like Ben hadn't fought a man larger than him, but he'd just never done so poorly against one before, especially someone who could move so fast. Phasma hadn't had her shift so she didn't see it (and if Snoke had his way, she never would) but Ben's insides still felt like jelly and were promising retribution in the morning if he didn't give himself the necessary rest.

He needed to talk to Rey about everything. Sit down, have a mature discussion. Maybe finally put all  _this_  behind them.

Ben ignored both and chose the third option, which was to get another drink and simmer in his misery.

"What the hell was I supposed to do?" Ben asked, when he got his drink. A...glass of water?  _Motherfucker._  He started trying to catch the bartender's eye.

Hux sighed. "Well you  _weren't_  supposed to talk down to her and belittle her feelings. I'd assumed that was a given."

"Okay," Ben said, rolling his eyes, "so what would you have said?

> _"Because the night belongs to lovers,_
> 
> _Because tonight belongs to us-"_

After a moment of drumming his fingers on the bar, Hux finished his drink and said, "It would have been difficult, of course, but I would have told her that I wasn't interested and I didn't see her that way. I would have said she was more like a sibling, or a just a friend, and I didn't see myself ever wanting more."

Hux watched Ben mull over his words before he groaned again.

"But…shit," Hux paused, his jaw dropped, "Oh  _shit_. That's not true for you, is it?"

Ben ignored him, gave up trying to grab the bartender's attention, and chugged the glass of water. It didn't make him feel better as they heard the audience clap, and said, "She  _just_  turned eighteen. And I already addressed it a month ago. I'm sure it's just a crush." If they weren't already flushed from drinking, he was sure he would have turned red as he said, " _If that,_ and we're not talking about this."

Hux shook his head. "It doesn't sound like  _she_  thinks it's just a crush. Doesn't actually sound like you do either. One way or another, you should deal with this."

Ben pulled his fingers through his hair, trying to hide his annoyance at yet another person attempting  _Don't Stop Believin'_. His mouth felt abnormally dry as he finally turned to face the stage again. He wasn't surprised to see that it was Poe.

"What do you mean,  _one way or another_?" he asked quietly to his sudden confidant.

Hux snorted. "Despite what you say, you haven't really been discouraging it." He cleared his throat and started counting things off on his fingers. "Have you ever introduced her to any of the women you see? Or even mentioned them? And uh...S _weetheart_? I noticed you're still using that name for her. Do you normally use pet names for all your friends? Should we come up with a good one for me?" he asked cheekily, "I think I'm more of a  _darling_ , personally."

"I haven't seen anyone in a while." Raising his eyebrow, Ben glared over at his friend, and added. "She's just a kid, Hux."

" _Just a kid?_  Do you even hear yourself? Take a look at your actions, and then listen to what you're saying. Do you honestly believe the bullshit coming out of your mouth?" Hux scoffed, " _Just a kid_...are you trying to convince me or yourself?"

After a moment Ben turned back around and smacked his head lightly against the bar and muttered a string of curses and something else that had stuck with him lately. It was a pin needle among the steaming pile of cussing, but it seemed Hux caught it nonetheless.

"What?"

(Ben closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of the bar his face was pressed into. It smelled like sweat, salt, and failure. Or maybe that was just him).

Ben raised his head just high enough to spit the words, "I said, ' _That's what Rey asked me.'_ " Then, like an emotionally responsible person, he futilely gestured for another drink and smacked his forehead back to the bar.

It was then that the walking hurricane known as Phasma made her way over to the bar, shimmying through a pair of well-meaning men in polo shirts and side-stepping another with a feint Ben recognized from Taekwondo. He swallowed when he saw the movement.

His Master had been very clear. Phasma was their fishing lure. A lure who didn't need to know the full story.

His tattoo stung, and Ben could just imagine the barest of head nods from the man at Ben's dedication.

Phasma sidled up to Hux, and, yet again displaying her capabilities when she snaked an around the man with seamless grace, effectively stealing his drink right from under him.

"Witch," Hux muttered. Whatever other smarmy remark that had been on the tip of his tongue was gone when he saw the saucy little smirk she gave him not even six inches from his face.

"Wrong word there," she pointed out, taking a sip from Hux's drink.

"Fuck's sake," Ben grunted, "Get a room."

"Piss off Ben," they both said in unison.

"I  _told_  you," he practically snarled, "My name is Kylo."

The three of them engaged in a stare-off. Ben's head pounded with the oncoming hangover (he hated his low tolerance sometimes), and he wondered if they were going to come to blows. Or rather, if he was. It wouldn't have been the first time he threw the first punch.

_Strong immovable hands - a giants hands - gripped his arms and held them over his back. He struggled, let loose the beast building in his chest, roared and-_

"M'sorry," he mumbled, deflating as the air left his chest in a long exhale. He sullenly turned back to the bar. The bar stool was starting to creak impatiently with all his movement.

They stayed like that. Phasma and Hux having one of their silent understandings and Ben brooding.

"I guess I'm just confused," Ben admitted, finally looking up at his friends. "I thought that earlier...I kind of got the impression that her and Poe...I mean," he fidgeted uncomfortably, "earlier they had their arms around each other. I figured-"

"Oh, thank God you're pretty," Phasma laughed. "Poe was just helping get rid of a creepy guy - he's just a friend. Well, personally I think it might be more of a friends with benefits situation but-"

Her words died when the glass in Ben's hand shattered.

"Uh…" Hux stared at him, an eyebrow raised. "Seriously,  _Kylo?_  Struck a nerve there, did we?"

"Oh chill, stop being so overprotective," Phasma said, rolling her eyes. She was used to his over-dramatic personality and it certainly wasn't the first time she'd seen him break a glass. "Rey's eighteen - she does  _not_ need  _you_ to judge her taste in men. I mean, sure, he's a couple years older, but Poe's a good guy. Plus, it's just a hunch, and what's the harm? You know Poe. He's a nice, charming, harmless guy. Very flirty, open to anything, very respectful." She shrugged carelessly, unaware of the stake she was striking through his chest with each word, "Y'know, perfect for something safe and casual. Kid has good taste, if you ask me, so stop being such a big brother about it."

There was a moment of awkward silence between them, just as Poe ended up butchering  _Journey's_  masterpiece on stage and started getting ready for the next aberration. "Right.  _Big brother_. Sure," Hux said.

Phasma gave Hux a strange look, and hesitated, glancing curiously back at Ben. When it hit her she gasped. "Wait, Benji, you're  _jealous?"_

Ben huffed and decided not to remind them about his preferred title again, "Oh c'mon, Phas, you need to stop calling me that."

"Never," she replied, her face breaking into a Cheshire grin. "And don't ignore my question. Since when did this-" she gestured flippantly over in Rey's direction, "-happen? Little young for you, isn't she?"

"She is, it didn't, and it won't," he answered. "I was just telling Hux to shut up about it because it's absolutely  _not_  a thing."

"Well I bet your uncle would be thrilled to find out about this _._ " Phasma snorted. "So, then, are you expecting me to ignore the fact that you were totally checking her out earlier this week, in the diner?" She looked over at Hux and shrugged, "I can't believe I didn't notice it before now. He was  _so_ obvious. He even blushed when I caught him."

Hux rolled his eyes, cleared his throat and glanced at Ben's hand. "Yes, well, he's an idiot. Now that we've got that settled, can we take care of the broken glass? And the...blood? Can we maybe get that cleaned up?"

The others glanced down at his hands. Part of him was surprised to see that he actually was bleeding. He must have had more than he expected though, because the only thing he could feel was a faint stinging that paled in comparison to...basically everything else right now.

Ben had started fidgeting uncomfortably somewhere around the phrase  _friends with benefits_  but he didn't comment on it. He had no right to, and realistically he wasn't even sure what he'd say, so he gave Hux a quick nod and left for the bathroom to clean up his hand, doing his best to avoid the miserable, hellish feeling in the pit of his stomach and the sudden urge he felt to strangle Poe with his bare hands.

* * *

The Solo-Organa house had never lost its austerity or grandioseness after Han's death. Rey wasn't sure why. She would have expected a widow to have trouble adjusting to things, but as she pulled the Falcon in their driveway, the biggest change she saw was the lack of what could only have been called toys and tools missing from the garage window. Han, Leia had told Rey last Christmas, had loved to tinker about with many things he rightfully shouldn't have. The garage had been his second home.

It was another blisteringly hot summer day, and college was just around the corner. She and Leia had already hashed out the various details of Han's last wish, and now all that was left was for Rey to figure out the commuting as she'd intended for the first semester. That had been one thing she'd been firm on. On-campus student housing was ridiculous and overpriced. The least Rey could do was make sure that they didn't waste money on it.

She walked up to the front door and took a deep breath before pressing the doorbell. Leia had said the people they were meeting were friendly but friendly didn't mean much when the government and laws that had let Rey down were now going to be responsible for making sure it didn't happen to another unsuspecting foster child.

When Leia opened the door they exchanged hugs, and Rey noticed the nervous energy surrounding her unofficial butler, Threepio. Surprisingly, Rey felt no nervous spike of energy at seeing yet another person who in just a few scant minutes would be privy to her previous life's story.

"The others are awaiting us in the parlor," Threepio said, his thready voice low and solemn. He directed them down a hallway that Rey already knew how to navigate and when they walked in he closed the double-doors marking the entrance.

There were two men sitting on the sofa. One of them wore a steel-blue suit and had a careful and methodical look in his eyes. The other wore beige slacks stained with sweat, and an untucked white dress shirt - that one had kind eyes.

"Rey, I'd like you to meet Mr. Stang and Mr. Jackson," Leia said gesturing to each man respectively. "They'll be the ones helping us cover the material we'll need. Mr. Jackson is with the Children's Bureau. Mr. Stang is with the district attorney's office and he'll be helping build the case against Unkar Plutt, who you'll be happy to know is currently enjoying a stay with the local precinct for various dubious materials found at his storefront."

Rey goggled at the woman. She didn't know much, but she did know that usually this sort of thing took months, if not years to bring to a head. She'd just thought that she'd be talking to some people from social services, not that she'd be dealing with the freakin' DA's office already ready and willing to prosecute the man.

She shivered. It was easy to forget, with how diplomatic she was normally, that Leia was just as formidable as the rest of her family.

"Why don't you take a moment to settle in," Mr. Jackson said. He had a mellifluous tone that reminded Rey of peppermint. "We can get started whenever you're ready."

With a quick breath to steel herself, Rey sat down on the high-back chair to the side of the sofa. "No...no. I'm ready."

And then, for the next three hours, she told them everything she could about the man known as Unkar Plutt.

* * *

It took longer to sift through the paperwork on his desk to find the number than Luke would have preferred. He'd long meant to program the thing into his phone, but he had a hard time messing around with technology nowadays, and his new phone was overly sensitive to the simplest of touches.

He could have asked Rey for help, but Luke didn't want to be a cliche old man asking his...ward... how to do things with new age gadgets and was determined to learn to do things himself. That and, part of him could freely admit to himself, he didn't want Rey to even think about calling that place.

It was a strictly last-resort only number, and even then, Luke had managed to do without calling it the whole time since getting it.

The dial tone rang for a worryingly long time before someone finally picked up.

"First Order MMA," said the smooth voice on the other end of the line.

Luke waited for the follow-up to the statement but found nothing forthcoming. With a cough, he spoke, "Good morning, I'm looking for Ben?"

Confusion. Even through the terrible reception in his phone (probably a mouse chewing through the line again, Luke mused), he could hear the confusion in the other man's tone. "Whazzat? Ben?"

Of course. Ben was a relatively common name, Luke reasoned. He might need to be more specific. "Uh, yes. Ben. Ben Solo? Last name starts with  _S_  as in snake, and-"

"I know what  _S_  sounds like," the voice on the other end interrupted, and even if he couldn't see them Luke was sure they were rolling their eyes. "We ain't got anyone called that here. No Solo's around here. You sure you got the right place?"

Something heavy and radioactive was settling in his gut, but Luke kept calm. Maybe this was just a new person on staff? "I'm positive, young man. He's supposed to be...teaching there." It galled Luke to call it that, based on the rumors he'd heard of that place. "Taekwondo. He told me he teaches the groups you have there."

The voice on the end of the line chuckled. "We don't run groups, old-timer. Whoever comes in can take a lesson if they want it. Hah, Ben," there was something derisive in his tone as he started speaking in a slightly arrogant tone of voice, "Sounds like an accountant's name. What the hell kind of business would they have with us?"

It seemed like they were going to go off on a tangent so Luke decided to try once more. He tried to convey as much urgency as he felt to the man on the other line. "Are you sure? He's tall, about six foot two, he's got long black hair and can be a bit gloomy and-"

"Oh!" the man on the other end exclaimed, "Oh! You're talking about Kylo."

That stopped Luke short. "Kylo?"

"Yeah.  _Kylo Ren._ "

Luke took a moment to center himself before he then asked, in a very tightly controlled voice, "Could I speak to Kylo Ren then, please?"

"Yeah, yeah, hold on a sec," there was a pause as Luke heard the man move the receiver away and then shout, "Hey! Kylo! I think I got some old guy, your dad maybe, asking for a 'Ben Solo'? You got any idea what he's talking about?"

There was a burst of activity and what sounded like a very heavy and human sound of something hitting the floor on the other end. Luke felt himself start to pace before he noticed and stopped himself. He was going to drive himself sick with worry if he just started like that. It was probably a mistake. Maybe the guy had misunderstood what he'd been saying all along and-

"Kylo Ren speaking," Ben's voice picked on the other end, and Luke had to close his eyes.

"Hello Ben," he said, at last. "It's been a while since we've talked."

More than a few months even. The last real conversation between the two of them had been at Rey's graduation. Everything else had been a series of increasingly shorter texts and voicemails.

"...Uncle Luke," Ben acknowledged on the other end. "Is there a reason you called?"

There was, but suddenly Luke found himself with a series of questions. "How long have you been going by Kylo Ren?"

"...not long."

Lies.

"Is there any significance to the name?"

"...no."

More lies.

"We haven't had a chance to talk in a while." Luke reiterated.

His nephew's response was pure silence. He could hear him shushing others though. Were people listening in?

Luke suppressed the urge to curse out loud. "Does it have anything to do with what happened at Maz's diner, with that boy? What's his name- Logan?"

"Liam," Ben oh so helpfully supplied. "And no, it doesn't."

"I think we should talk about that, son."

"I'm not your son," Ben corrected, and dammit if that sentence alone doesn't spear Luke's heart worse than any strike, "And I don't think that's a conversation you and I should be having...sir."

"Ben, you threatened to  _break his arms_ ," Luke said, as patiently as he could manage, which admittedly wasn't much. "Over a single comment."

"He was 'commenting' on Rey's flexibility, Luke," Ben spat viciously into the phone, "And after I'd already told him not to say shit like that-"

"Wait, you've done this before?" Luke demanded, before realizing he was getting sidetracked, "And that's not the point! He's a child! An untrained child! Yes, I agree he needs to be educated and maybe he could use some perspective, but Ben, our duty as black belts is not to go around threatening every idiot that crosses our paths. We're supposed to educate and inform, not attempt assault and battery on an eighteen year old boy. I know you know the difference between the two."

"Whatever," Ben scoffed, and it was clear that was as far as Luke was going to get. "You can't just have called me about some crap that came up months ago. What do you want?"

Luke took a second to sit down. He couldn't stop his leg from bouncing up and down, or the ache in his chest that had nothing to do with any of the classes he'd taught that day. "Rey's promotion is tomorrow. She hasn't said anything, because she just assumes you'll be coming anyways, but I need to know if you are. I need to make a call for some refreshments since tomorrow is going to be a long one."

An aggravated sigh came down the line. "What time is it?"

"Promotion starts at noon," Luke spoke into the phone, and hoped he didn't sound as hollow as he felt, "Guests can start coming in at eleven as usual."

"I'll be there at noon." And then he hung up.

Leaving Luke alone with nothing except a dying dial-tone and a head full of doubts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Mischief, a sleepover, and a first time.
> 
> WRITERS NOTES:
> 
> AttackoftheDarkCurses: Remember how we said Ben would suffer? (CACKLES). Also, for anyone not picking up what we've been putting down, Poe is absolutely not into Rey and she's not interested either. Phasma might be observant, but when it comes to Rey and Poe she's misinterpreting things. Sorry, no Damerey in this fic. Poe is an awesome character but we're going full Stormpilot at some point (soon) and we just aren't interested in adding the relationship drama that would come into play if we had Rey hooking up with Poe. He'll definitely be a good friend, but that's about it. As Poe said, she's just not his type.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: The first scene from Ben Solo's perspective! That one was weird. We had to balance a very very confused guy dealing with a lot of shit regarding his endeavoring love-interest of a best-friend, and all the ugly crap that's happening behind the scenes without spoiling too much. And, the start of the end of Unkar Plutt. He'll be relevant later still, but hopefully in a surprising sense. Luke's conversation is one we wanted to include last chapter, but thematically it didn't seem appropriate but also because otherwise that would have made it exceedingly long.
> 
> Martial Arts Terminology:
> 
> Judoka - A practitioner of the martial art known as Judo. Judo, traditionally, is about throws and takedowns. You ever accidentally trip and fall over yourself on the ground and groan in pain? Judo is about doing that to another person on purpose. It's awesome. Hurts like hell, and I seriously don't recommend overdoing it, but it's a great martial art, and one just as worth learning as Taekwondo in its own way, despite the antagonistic mention of it here.
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/) 
[ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/) 



	28. Bodan, Third Stripe, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is our longest chapter so far, and we actually ended up needing to split it in half. That means, if anyone’s asked us which chapters we like the most, which chapters are particularly heartbreaking, etc - if that chapter was after #28, it’s now off by one. I’m not sure that matters much, but I wanted to give everyone a head’s up.
> 
> Anyway, this is the first full “Rey’s a legal adult” chapter. Just thought I’d mention.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


In the kind of turn of events that seemed to leave no one surprised except her, Rey ended up oversleeping on her first day of college.

She'd spent the entire night before worrying about whether or not she had all the right routes mapped (she'd memorized them all), if she had the right parking lot information (there was only one near the buildings she'd be in), if traffic was going to be a problem (it never was), and so on.

Luke had warned her that she was going to exhaust herself and end up oversleeping if she didn't go to bed and deal with any preparations she had left in the morning. He'd warned her and even spoken in that resigned tone he used when he knew she wasn't listening, and if he looked a little smug in the morning when she ran into the kitchen to grab some fruit for the drive over, Rey wasn't going to be the one to admit he was right.

(She was definitely not admitting that. Not to his face and not for a good week or so, because then he'd be insufferable, in his usual  _Luke_  way.)

"Late night?" he asked, eyes flicking over the top of his newspaper. If there ever was proof that Luke was stuck in the stone age it was that the man still walked to the store at six in the morning, paid with dimes and quarters he somehow always had, and walked back with the local paper tucked under his arms and a bit of fresh fruit in a brown paper bag.

"I'm running late," Rey grumbled as she grabbed an apple from the bowl on their little dining table.

"Get any sleep?" He was smirking.

Rey sniffed daintily in his direction. "Plenty."

She would have stopped to banter with him some more, but her first writing course (the required  _Introduction to Research Writing_ course that Coruscant University demanded all English majors attend) was in half an hour and she'd already imagined several worse case scenarios for what would happen if she didn't show up on time. It was a testament to her mounting neuroticism that she'd only included getting expelled in twelve of her thirty  _Oh Crap Who Let Me Attend College_  doomsday scenarios.

Rey had never claimed to be logical.

She grabbed another apple and dropped it in her backpack. She took a bite out of the first one, sweet, delicious, and juicy, before she leaned over the table and gave Luke a one-armed hug that ended with some juice droplets from the apple falling on the top of the article he'd been reading.

"Watch it, kid," Luke grumbled, but even when he was being a grump there was this interminably teddy bear-like quality to the man, which only got worse when she saw the baby blue slippers the man he insisted on wearing.

"Sorry about that," Rey said absentmindedly, double-checking her bag for anything she might have missed. Food, notebooks,  _her sanity..._

He swiped the bits off the paper with long-sweeping motions, before seeming to focus on some random article.

She bid him a muffled bye from behind another bite of her apple just as she heard him say, "Don't be late to practice tonight. We'll be learning your first Black Belt poomse."

She paused with one foot in the exit, and leaned far back to get a look at Luke from the doorway. He was back to reading the paper, and didn't look up at her (frankly ridiculous) display. She took the apple out of her mouth and couldn't stop the eagerness in her voice from showing as she said, "Wait, really?!"

He'd been holding back on teaching her Koryo for months now. Normally, she'd have been slated to learn the form right around when she'd earned her Bodan belt, since it was a different style of poomse than she was used to. She'd seen him start teaching the boy who'd acquired his Bodan in the promotion right after hers, and though she didn't think the word  _jealousy_  was completely accurate, being excluded again had stung in a too familiar way.

"I figure it's about time," Luke spoke, calmly turning the page of his paper, "Anyways, don't you have a class to get to? I'll explain everything later."

She dropped her pack on the ground and jammed the apple in her coat pocket, then ran to the table. This time, she didn't settle for a casual one-armed hug and instead practically tackled the man with an embrace that actually startled him. The table shook from the impact and motion, and his coffee mug stuttered, leaving his paper stained for the second time that day.

"Thank you," she whispered before he could gather his wits. With a final grateful squeeze, she released him and sprinted for the door - now thoroughly late, but no longer afraid.

* * *

As the weeks passed, the telltale signs of summer began to fade away like a mirage, and with them, so did Rey's enthusiasm. There was only so much droning on about the differences, merits, and history between APA, MLA, and Chicago-style she could take, and the various papers she'd had to write, from  _Humanism and Its Roots_  to  _Ennui and Baudelaire_  (titles created literally minutes before submissions) had not endeared Rey to a career in professional writing.

She knew, two weeks into the semester, that she wouldn't be able to stick herself behind a desk and just let life pass her by. She'd had enough of that in high school, and even though her life had improved immeasurably in that timeframe, recently the only thing that seemed to have changed was her commute.

It was finally the end of her shift at Maz's, and for the first time in what felt like forever, she and her friends were going to have another Horri-Bad Movie Friday (name change pending) of poorly acted, overly and gratuitously bloody horror movies. Apparently, Finn had discovered a physical copy of a movie in the university library about a possessed bed that killed anyone who slept in it. It was probably going to be exactly as terrible as it sounded, and  _why_ such a movie was in their library was a mystery all on its own, but Rey had been looking forward to the event all week.

A knock on her bedroom door frame let her know Luke had just walked in. She didn't pause in her packing and waved him in. He walked over to her bed, and seemed to survey everything she'd laid out with raised eyebrows.

"I thought you and Rose were just going to study?" he asked.

"Sorta'? I mean, the guys are passing by and we'll be ordering pizza, but Rose is going to help me with my programming assignment in the meanwhile."

As part of the general requirements the university required, Rey had to pick some electives to round herself out in case she ever changed majors. She'd picked an introductory programming course, thinking something new  _had_  to be better after years of the same rehashing of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, but now she was thoroughly regretting it.

Fortunately, Rose was a gracious angel who'd only laughed when Rey had started bitching about how nobody told her it was basically going to be an entirely new language, and definitely not cracking into the Pentagon in a few scant months. In an act of grace that just proved she was a better person than Rey, Rose had decided to personally tutor her.

This, however, also meant that Rey was stuck with learning on a piece of scrap (read: crap) laptop that Rose had somehow negotiated away from the IT department. It was slow, clunky, heavier than a brick, and she'd dropped it on her foot enough times in the past month that she was seriously debating asking Luke if she could use it for her next board break instead of the usual pine.

Sighing, Rey looked outside. The world had gone grey with dusk, and the autumnal air greeted her cheerfully through the open portion of the window.

"I should probably get going," Rey said, rolling her neck and wincing. Her shoulders were pinched taut with exhaustion and she was fairly sure her legs would give out on her if she'd had to spend another hour on her feet at the diner.

She grabbed her backpack and the duffel bag that held her overnight stuff, and made her way to the exit.

"Rey, wait."

Stopping mid-step, Rey looked back to see Luke giving her a concerned look.

"Before you go, I just have something I need to ask you." He grimaced as if the next few words tasted like something foul, "How's Ben seemed lately? Has he been ok?"

She met his stare, trying to dvine what he was getting at. Master Luke had been cagey regarding Ben's training ever since he found out who Ben was working for, but he'd never approached her so openly about the man himself.

"He's fine," she said slowly, working over the words in her own mind. Sure, in the technical definition of the word, Ben was fine, but that was because things between them were still a myriad of tense and strained statements about the weather whenever he got within ten feet of her vicinity. "He's...fine. Why?"

Her answer didn't seem to appease him, but all he did was shake his head and wave off her concerns. "It's nothing. Probably nothing."

She stared at him a second longer before deciding that she wasn't going to get any more information out of him.

Instead, she went back and gave him a quick one-armed hug, trying to convey everything she wished she could put to words in the simple motion. "He's fine," she said, not even convincing herself, "He's  _Ben_. You've seen him spar, Master Luke. I don't think anyone could hurt him."

"That's not what I'm worried about, Rey," he corrected, staring at something far off and his voice haunting. She was about to ask what he meant when he shook his head, finally noticing her continued presence. "Don't you have a study party to get to?"

"Emphasis on party," Rey laughed, pulling away.

"I hope not. I remember my college years. Buncha' kids drinking when they shouldn't have been." There was a pause, and when he next spoke, there was a melancholic fondness to his voice that hadn't been there before. "Did you know Ben once tried drunk calling me at two in the morning to ask if I'd fed the cat? We didn't even  _have_  a cat."

She snorted even if part of her doubted that. The few times she'd seen him drunk,  _goofy_  was not the word she would have used.  _Maudlin_  would have been more appropriate.

Raising an eyebrow and cocking her hip, she remembered something Han had told her once, so long ago. "What about you? Any crazy stories of your own to share?"

Her master snorted and gave her a dry look. "Nothing you'll ever get from me, kid. Now get the hell out of here. I've got plans and I don't need you cramping my style."

Laughing, she hefted her bag from where she'd dropped it on the floor and walked out.

* * *

Study-party-slash-Horri-Bad Movie Night Friday was not turning out to be a success.

For one, the student internet available in the dorms was slower than molasses. Rey was pretty sure she could have walked down to the library, borrowed a book on what she was looking up, and come back faster than it was taking the various pages to load.

For another, Finn and Poe were late with the movie and the food and Rey was starting to feel the effect of skimping out on lunch. She normally wasn't one to do that anymore, but years of casual malnutrition in the form of Plutt's care had left her with a skewed sense of hunger and appetite. Maz had all but stuffed some bagels into Rey at the start of her shift, but after the day she'd had, her stomach just wanted to shrivel up on itself and die.

And, last, but most importantly, not least, was  _Carmen._

"Oh come on!" said the voice of possibly the most vapid human being to exist. "Vanessa, you said there were gonna' be guys there."

Rey and Rose looked at each other over the lids of their respective laptops. Rey tried to convey with her eyes just how much suffering and misfortune she was wishing on this girl. Something involving knives in her ears, maybe, so she'd have an idea of what she sounded like.

But  _Rose?_  Rose was smiling.

Sometimes Rey wondered if Rose was truly human or just some happy Terminator variant.

"Van,  _oh my God_ , I told you I  _never_  wanted to see that  _skanky_  bitch ever  _again._ "

How? How was it possible to emphasize so many words and say so little.

What would Master Luke say? Find your inner balance. Close your eyes, center yourself, let the world around you inside and-

" _That little ho!"_

Oh  _screw this_ , Master Luke never had to deal with an eighteen year old girl bemoaning her lack of venues for finding a husband.

Slapping her hands on the table, Rey stood up, only for Rose to grab her arm before anything happened. They stared each other down for a moment, before Rey relented and sank back into her rickety chair.

"Look at it this way," Rose said weakly, "At least she's not screaming out into the street anymore."

"Yeah, she's only screaming right in our ears," Rey cut back bitterly. Her head was starting to pound from the stream of nonsense and strings of words that meant basically nothing. She'd thought people like this didn't actually exist, but clearly no one had dropped Carmen the memo. "Is she- is she even aware we're in the same room?"

The two of them turned to look at Carmen, who'd gotten dolled up in sleeveless dress and pumps that would commit homicide on a person's ankles after about five minutes. At some point, she'd also used hairspray. A  _lot_ of hairspray. So much she probably had her own miniature hole in the ozone directly above her head.

"I don't think she's aware of anything right now," Rose conceded. It was the first thing Rey had ever heard her say that could have been construed as anything other than kind.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned.

Rey was about to call Finn and Poe and ask if they'd mind meeting up midway when a sound much like a lot of helium escaping a balloon seemed to explode from beside her ear. Before her fight-or-flight response could kick in and bash someone's teeth in (and she was definitely feeling up for bashing something), Rey realized it was Carmen, laughing.

Or giggling.

Or maybe melting?

" _Awesomeawesomeawesome,_ " she chirped - fucking  _chirped_  - into her phone, "Alright where is it? Uh-huh. Okay. And where do I- near the gas station? The skeevy one?  _Awesome. Thankyousomuchloveyouokaybyeeeeee._ "

Then, she hung up her phone, grabbed a microscopic-sized bag from bed, struggled to stuff her phone in there, and started wobbling her way out the door on her Gucci stilts.

"I'm headed out!" Carmen called out in her unnecessarily loud voice, "Don't wait up!"

She slammed the door with all the care of a girl who never had to worry about fixing one up.

Rey and Rose shared a look once more. Rey tried to express just how wonderful the news of Carmen leaving was to her and how great it was going to be to finally have the place to themselves.

Rose? Rose was frowning.

"I know the place she's talking about," Rose said, coming in close in a conspiratorial whisper that was completely unnecessary. "It's not in a great neighborhood."

Alarm. That was alarm and dismay building in her belly. "Rose-"

"Rey, I know she's a bit...much, but, she's not a bad person."

"But she knows it too!" Rey grasped desperately. "She knows it's a bad area! She got the instructions from her friend, Vanessa."

Rose's look was unimpressed. "I said she's not a bad person. I never said she was smart."

It was only the surprise laugh that escaped Rey that made the cold soup of responsibility settle. She sighed, and gave one last token effort. "Do we have to?"

"Well, no, but, just because something's not easy doesn't make not doing it right."

Rey raised her hands, desolately. "I give, I give." She frowned. "Ugh, and here I thought you'd given up Taekwondo."

Right on time, there was a knock on the door, followed by a pompous and muffled voice from the other said saying, "The Pizza Lords have arrived!"

For a moment, Rey thought it would work, and that Rose would let her airhead of a roommate go have a night of what was sure to be harmless fun. But then Rose perked up, smiled mischievously, and Rey knew her chances of a peaceful Friday night were as washed up Carmen's hairdo.

* * *

Suddenly, Rey realized she'd been completely wrong - despite the similarly never-ending amount of boring assignments, college was  _not at all_ like high school, and she figured this out just as Poe handed her a large red plastic cup filled with...actually, she had no idea what it was. It smelled like fruity toxic waste.

Poe shrugged, noticing her confusion and hesitation, and clinked (as much as two plastic cups  _could_  clink) his against hers. "Don't ask. All I know is that nobody's slipped anything in this other than alcohol and...juice, I think?."

That'd have to be reassurance enough.

Rey took a deep breath, shot him a  _what the hell_  sort of smile, and chugged.

"So," Poe shouted, because  _of course_  the off-campus house was blasting music in every room, "your friend seems nice."

"Which one?" she asked, trying her best not to grimace at the terrible tasting crap she'd just swallowed. Not all alcohol would taste  _that_  bad, right?

When Poe didn't answer right away, she glanced over and saw him taking another drink, in what could be called a deliberately slow and yet bashful manner. A small smile graced her lips and she elbowed his arm. "Poe Dameron," she said, with faux amazement, "are you interested in one of my friends?"

Opportunities like this came once in a lifetime, and she fully intended to milk it for all it was worth.

When he blushed, Rey cackled for a moment, then smiled fondly at him. "Which one? They'd both be lucky to date you. Just, please tell me you aren't talking about that Carmen-person. Y'know, the walking, talking nightmare?"

"I could have said the same thing about you once, Kenobi," he said with his typical Dameron-charm. "Uh...I was wondering about Finn. Is he-"

"Into guys?" she finished for him, assuming that was the reason he'd started acting like a middle-schooler with a crush. "Yep. Why don't you go bring him a drink?"

Poe smiled broadly and looked over in Finn's direction. He was talking animatedly to Rose, who looked as bored and out of place as a stereotypical jock at a Star Trek convention, and Carmen was...nowhere to be found. Just as well, Rey thought. That girl could have made lampposts look educated.

All of a sudden, Poe's smile dropped, and he said nervously, "You don't think he'll mind that I'm a couple years older?"

Rey looked at him in disbelief, then couldn't stop the giggly snorts that were threatening to bubble out of her. Her face was starting to feel warm.

"What? What is it?"

"I just-" Rey laughed more, "I can't believe you're asking  _me_  that. Of all people!"

His brow furrowed, "Why? Aren't you one of his closest friends?"

When Rey finally managed to stop laughing, she took another drink (this time without nearly gagging), and caught her breath. "Yes," she said finally, "but Poe, seriously? You're asking  _me?_  I've had feelings for Ben for...gosh," she paused for a minute, "Well,  _years_  now. So, you're asking the person who has feelings for someone seven years older than her if  _two years_  might be a problem?"

Poe blinked. "Oh. Right." After a moment he snorted, and shook his head. "Wow, yeah, you're way more of a mess than I am."

"Fuck you too, Dameron."

"Like I said, not my type." He stuck his tongue out at her, displaying the exact level of maturity he was on, before he smiled. "Thanks, Rey. I'll go bring him a drink."

"Wait, before you go," Rey stepped back and held her arms out, as if to present herself, "Can I get an objective opinion? Rose suggested this top and when we were at the dorm I thought it looked good but now I'm feeling a little…"

"On display?" he asked. Then, for good measure, he waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

She rolled her eyes and nodded.

"You realize that top is basically see-through, right?"

"You're kidding." Rey's eyes went wide, even as she brought her arms over herself. Some of the drink in her cup sloshed around and spilled on her top, which probably did not help the apparent see-through problem.

"I'm not," Poe grinned. "The lace is strategic, that's why Rose suggested wearing it without a bra or a tank-top. It's revealing, but technically you aren't really showing skin. The shorts, though?  _Those_ show some skin."

" _Shit,"_ Rey hissed, "I'm going to kill Rose."

"Rey, chill, it looks great," he reassured. "I mean, take what I say with a grain of salt, because as we've already established,  _you aren't my type_ , but trust me, you look hot. Anyone who has eyes and is attracted to women would agree." Poe paused for a moment before letting out a bark of laughter, "Just  _never_  wear that in front of Master Luke."

She huffed, but a smile broke out over her face (smiling felt nice, a disconcertingly large part of her noted...smiling felt  _really_  nice) as she said, "Alright, well, thanks. Now," she elbowed him again, "go bring my friend a drink, okay?"

Poe winked, "Yes ma'am."

* * *

Phasma groaned when she heard her cell ring. Despite the fact that most of her peers seemed to think that people their age should spend Friday nights "out on the town," she had a rough job  _thank you very much_ , and if she wasn't regularly in bed by midnight, Hux probably would take it as a sign that she'd been body-snatched. Or worse, caffeinated.

She ignored the phone. A few moments later it stopped and the bedroom was, once again, blessedly silent.

Until it started against and suddenly it was like the all the bells of Notre Dame ringing around inside her skull.

Hux jerked up out of bed, grumbling, "Who the fuck's calling us? Someone had better be dying."

"I'll get it, relax," Phasma sighed. She didn't bother to get up. Instead she lazily grabbed the phone off the nightstand, pressed a button and said groggily, "What do you want?"

Seconds later, she was sitting up, wide awake.

" _Rey?_ Is everything okay?"

Hux glanced over, bewildered. She shrugged, and frowned, asking, "Are you  _drunk?"_  Half a minute of incoherent and disjointed ramblings later, she sighed, and said, "Have one of your friends text me the address, okay? Listen to me - don't leave. Stay there, I'll be over in twenty minutes."

Phasma hung up the phone and started chuckling.

"Was that Rey?" Hux asked, blinking blearily and yawning, "As in, Ben's-"

"Yeah," Phasma snorted, "Kid's drunk as hell, at some house party near the campus. She seems fine, other than being wasted. I don't even know if she meant to call me. Hell, I completely forgot I even gave her my number, but she kept blabbering on about roller-skates and something about learning Koryo? I'm going to go check on her and her friends...I want to make sure they get home okay."

"Aw, you do have a heart under all that crazy."

"Need I remind you're the one who invited  _me_ here tonight?"

"Yeah, so? I'm crazy too." Hux shook his head in amusement, "Who's with her, by the way? Ben's going to be  _pissed_  when he finds out about this."

" _If_  he finds out," Phasma corrected, "and she only mentioned Poe and Finn. She said something about her other friend leaving early, I think?" she shrugged. "It was kinda hard to tell."

"Want help?" Hux offered.

Phasma laughed and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Nah, you stay. I think I can handle three drunk college kids."

* * *

True to her word, Phasma pulled up in front of a somewhat run-down house almost exactly twenty minutes later. A rager was obviously still in full swing, and from the street she could see a bunch of party-goers smoking  _God only knows what_ on the front porch.

Luckily, the drunken idiots she was there to pick up were waiting obediently, sitting on the grass of the property's small front lawn, a fact which immediately distinguished them from the rest, who were performing their best rendition of  _Animal House_  extras. Phasma waved to them from the car, hoping they'd see her, but apparently the numbskulls were too drunk to figure it out.

She took a deep, calming breath, and parked in front of the house.

(She swore, if even a scratch got on her car because of this, she was going to take it out on their hides, martial artist or not.)

Somehow, in the time between her parking, and her walking up to the three of them, Poe and Finn had started making out, and Rey was... _rolling on the ground_. Laughing - at nothing, apparently.

"Oh for the love of God," Phasma muttered. She rolled her eyes, and said loudly in her scariest voice, "Hey, idiots, can you act sober long enough to get in the car?"

Rey snapped to attention and replied, possibly sarcastically, "Yes  _ma'am_ ," before bursting out in another round of laughter.

"Fantastic," Phasma groused. Seeing no other alternative, she glanced over at the two boys who were  _still_ locking lips and, knowing she'd regret it, used a hand to smack each of them on the back of their heads, effectively causing their foreheads to clack together. She may have enjoyed the clunk of their impact more than was appropriate for a Black Belt, but who was around to judge?

"Ow," Poe groaned. He looked up at her and slurred, "Phasma, what the hell?"

"Perfect, you can form sentences! That means you can  _get in the damn car."_

Finn let out a bit of a whine, rubbing the spot on the back of his head where he'd been smacked. "I'll get in your car if you don't do that again."

"If you get in my car, I won't have to," she said sweetly.

"Alright, alright... _bitch_."

"That's Queen Bitch to you, punk. Now get in the car before I drag you up by the-"

Finn slumped against Poe and started giggling.

She watched them both get to their feet, wobbling more than the deck of a boat during a hurricane as they made their way to her car. Of course, they got in her backseat, and Phasma had an annoying feeling they'd just start making out again.  _Gross_. At least they'd be in the car, though.

That just left Rey, who was still on the ground.

"Hey, Rey," she said softly, knowing she'd need to use a different approach with the overly-stubborn girl, "wanna come crash with me and Hux?"

Of course, Rey laughed at that, her nose crinkling adorably. "What, like a  _sleepover?"_

"Sure," Phasma said without any sarcasm whatsoever, "Like a sleepover - whatever works for you."

Rey snorted, and let out a giggle. "You're not going to make me talk about  _boys_  are you? Rose always wants to talk about boys at sleepovers."

"Y'know that sounds great, but if I wanted to hear someone wax poetry about what Solo looks like shirtless, I'd-" Phasma paused, "Well, actually, I just don't want to hear about that."

The girl grinned broadly, and whispered - or, at least, she probably  _thought_  it was a whisper, "He's  _so_ gorgeous though, Phas. I was  _kind_  of thinking, now that I'm eighteen...I mean, I would  _so_ climb-"

"Oookay," Phasma interrupted, "let's not finish that sentence, yeah? See, Ben's pretty much like my brother and trust me, I'm pretty sure I know  _exactly_  what you're thinking, and objectively, I get it. I do. But I really, really don't want to think about it."

Rey cracked up again, nodding, and Phasma sent up a quick, silent prayer to whoever or whatever might be listening that she would just get in the car without needing to be physically carried. As it was, the girl's eyes were glazed over and she... _sonofabitch,_ she still held a cup, and was, of course, drinking from it.

"Ah, I'll take that," Phasma said casually. "Mind if I have some?"

Rey shrugged and passed her the cup, managing to spill a good portion of it in the process. Phasma took a sniff of the cup's contents and winced, then dumped it out into the grass.

"Oh, Rey, you're going to be super hungover. C'mon, let's get you to a nice, cozy couch. How's that sound?"

"Mmm…." Apparently the girl was giving it some thought, and finally she said, "Yeah, okay."

* * *

Ben had been lounging on his (admittedly uncomfortable) futon for the better half of an hour, trying to find something to watch while he applied heat wraps to his shins and thighs when he heard hushed tones from the hallway. Normally he would have ignored his neighbors (he got enough of Hux and Phasma's incessant back and forth during the day), but hearing his own name caught his attention.

Hux's accent rang out clearly, despite his attempt as a whisper. "Ben will  _freak_  if we don't tell him."

"Yeah," he heard Phasma reply, "but then he'll be mad at Rey. Obviously what she's done is irresponsible but I don't think she deserves the full brunt of his temper, do you?"

If hearing his own name hadn't gotten his full attention, hearing Rey's had.

He listened carefully as Hux scoffed and said, "Oh  _please_ , he'll only be mad at her for about ten seconds and you  _know_  it."

Phasma sighed and admitted, "Okay, that's probably true, but this was probably her first time going out and she's going to have a rough enough morning as it is without Ben lecturing her."

Ben blinked as he tried to decipher what Phasma had said.  _What had Rey done to warrant a lecture?_

"But that's exactly my point! You know just as well as I do that you probably won't find anyone better than Ben to take care of her tonight - you  _know_  how he is with her - and personally, I think she could do with a lecture. C'mon, Phasma, what if you hadn't picked up when you had?"

Finally Ben hopped off the futon, tied the strings around his pajama bottoms up (there was no need for the anyone to see the bruises), and made his way to the door. He'd decided to interrupt and see for himself what Hux and Phasma were going on about. He got there in two long strides and swung the door open, folding his arms over his chest, and he put his best glare on.

"Guys, the walls are super thin, and you aren't nearly as quiet as-"

He stopped mid-sentence when he noticed that Rey was sitting on the steps by the landing, her head propped in her hands as she groaned.

Ben's eyes narrowed, "You have ten seconds to explain what Rey's doing here."

"Perfect. Problem solved! Ben, your  _not-girlfriend_  here went to a party," Hux said matter-of-factly, glaring at Phasma as she elbowed him in the ribs. "What?" he asked her, "It's not like he's going to buy it if I say the three of us were hanging out. We're both sober and the girl's more trashed than a freshman who's just discovered Trader Joe's $4 bottles of wine, it doesn't take a genius to notice!"

"She's  _what?!"_

Phasma winced. "Okay, this was exactly why we weren't going to say anything."

"Speak for yourself," Hux huffed. "I wanted to tell him."

Ben glared back and forth between the two of them for a moment, until Rey said quietly, "Can you guys make it stop spinn-" she hiccuped, and then let out a moan, "...why's it all spinning?"

"How much did she drink?" Ben demanded. He walked over and gently pulled her up off the stairs, realizing quickly that she was stumbling, at best. His eyebrows raised a bit when he noticed she was partly in her diner uniform - the one with exceptionally short shorts that showed an incredible amount of thi-  _nope not going there._

He'd absolutely never noticed her in the shorts before, nor had he ever considered that they might be flattering.

Not even once.

_Nope._

Just like his heart definitely didn't skip a beat or five when he noticed that she still wore the necklace he'd gotten her.

It really didn't help that she'd paired the shorts with a form-fitting black lace top that was probably a  _lot_  more see-through than she'd realized. In fact, it was pretty obvious she wasn't even wearing a-

Ben derailed that train of thought  _immediately_ (Wow,he was being such a creep) and snapped his eyes back to Phasma, swallowing hard.

"Was she this drunk when you got to her?" he asked after giving up on trying to get Rey to walk. Instead he swept her up into his arms, and held her against his chest.

Suddenly he wished he'd put on a shirt before leaving the apartment, and he tried his best to not acknowledge the fact that Rey made an adorable, soft happy noise once she was in his arms.

 _Yeah_. He was  _so_  fucked for this girl and because life was out to completely screw with him, it had only taken her admission to make him start  _noticing_  things.

Things like her lips.

 _Really though,_ how was he supposed to handle it when she said things like " _I shine for you"_ and when she looked at him like she was just waiting for him to take her in his arms and kiss her senseless, and then-

_Nope nope nope dammit shit nope._

Hux snorted at Rey's reaction. "Seems like you have things taken care of. Have a good night," he chuckled, turned to head back into his apartment, and decided to flippantly depart with, "Good luck with that one, apparently she's a proper college student now. I'm going back to bed."

Ben rolled his eyes, and turned to Phasma, "Seriously, was she like this when you found her?"

"Pretty much," the woman nodded, "She was there with Poe and Finn, and they were drinking some sort of mixed drink. I didn't have any but it smelled like paint-thinner mixed with fruit punch, so I can only imagine what the alcohol content was."

Phasma paused, and explained, "She ended up drunk calling me and I was worried about her getting home, so I picked them all up, and dropped the boys off at Poe's dorm - oh, apparently  _that's_  a thing, by the way. Anyway, Rey was a giggling mess when I got there, but I think she's been starting to sober up. Poe said Luke's under the impression that she's studying overnight with Rose, and once I realized how much she'd had, I figured it'd be best not to bring her back to his place."

" _This_ is 'sobering up'?" he groaned. "Well, that was probably a good call. Luke would have a heart-attack if he saw her like this," Ben sighed. "Okay, I'm gonna get this one," he gestured toward Rey, "a lot of water. Thanks for picking her up, Phas. I really appreciate it."

"Yeah, of course," Phasma said. "Need any help getting her settled?"

"Ben?" Rey's quiet voice interrupted.

He glanced down, and saw that her eyes were still closed, scrunched up as if she was in pain.

"Hey sweetheart," he said softly, "everything okay?"

She whimpered, "...it's spinning. Everything's spinning."

Ben snorted, and met Phasma's eyes to see that she was shaking her head in amusement.

He chuckled, "Rey, you're going to have such a bad hangover tomorrow, I might not even have to give you a lecture about the dangers of alcohol."

Rey whined a bit, and made herself busy nuzzling her face into his chest.  _Adorable._

He smiled down fondly at her, sighed, and cradled her a bit tighter before pressing a light kiss to her forehead. "Oh sweetheart, what am I gonna do with you?"

An uncharacteristic giggle left Phasma's lips, and Ben glanced up to find that she was staring at him with an amused look on her face. "Oh,  _that's_  cute." She smirked, "Tell me Benji, does Rey know that she's got you completely wrapped around her finger?"

Ben's jaw dropped. "Excuse me?"

"It's just, this-" Phasma gestured to him, and Rey in his arms, "this whole dynamic you two have going on. This thing where you pretend you're just friends or whatever, and you don't mean the world to each other. It's adorable. I can't believe I never noticed it before."

Well, that seemed about right, because  _neither could he_ and lately he was spending half his time wanting to beat his head against a wall whenever he thought about it. What the _hell_  was he thinking?

About Rey. That's what he was thinking.

_Damnit._

"Oh, not you, too," Ben groaned, and turned back to his apartment, calling back, "Goodnight, Phas."

"For the record, I ship it!" She called back, in a cajoling, sing-song, teasing him. "Wasn't so sure at first, but I kinda get it now."

Ben scowled, and replied dryly, just before kicking his apartment door closed behind him, "You're imagining things, Phas."

He made a point of ignoring her shout, "You're just mad because you don't want to admit it," through the door. It took him longer than it should have to shut down the voice in his head that said  _she's not wrong_.

* * *

Normally, he was fairly annoyed with the futon he had in lieu of a couch. He'd been meaning to replace it with something that had a bit more cushion, but for once, he found himself thankful for it, because it made for a halfway-decent guest bed.

Ben carefully placed her in a chair with a large water bottle, and laid the futon flat before setting up a few pillows and a large, plush blanket he grabbed off the end of his own bed. He wasn't really sure why he kept that blanket there anyway - he always ran warm, and more often than not, he tossed it off the bed at some point in the night.

"Hey, Rey, how are you feeling?" He asked, kneeling down in front of where she sat. Her eyes were still a bit glassy, and her eye makeup was all over the place. Ben sighed. "Let's get you cleaned up a bit, huh?"

She nodded, and then winced at what was likely either a throbbing headache, or a wave of nausea, and Ben found himself torn between feeling sympathetic, and feeling annoyed that she'd even gotten so drunk to begin with.

Ben left her with the water bottle and made his way to the bathroom closet, taking out a soft washcloth, and returned to Rey after getting the washcloth wet, kneeling down next to where she sat.

"Who put this much makeup on you?" he chuckled, wiping gently at her face. He was amused to see how much glitter was coming off onto the washcloth, and felt a bit relieved that it wouldn't be ending up on any of the pillows, or on the futon. That had happened once, and he'd nearly thrown out all the affected linens in his frustration. The guilty party definitely hadn't gotten invited back.

"Rose," she muttered. "She likes eyeliner."

"Well, it's not a bad look," he admitted, finally getting the rest of the makeup from her eyes, "it just doesn't seem like you."

In fact, it seemed a lot more like the kind of women he'd occasionally bring home for a night, and something about that  _really_  didn't sit right with him.

Rey just shrugged, blessedly oblivious to his thoughts.

Ben cleared his throat, and looked up at her. "Y'know, the drinking doesn't seem very  _you_ , either."

"I guess. Poe said he'd introduce us to  _college life,_ " she murmured, dropping her head to her chest before randomly saying, "My feet hurt. Why do my feet hurt?"

He muttered, "I'm going to murder Dameron," under his breath, and then sighed, saying, "I'm guessing you didn't pick the shoes?"

"Nope."

_Of course not._

"Those look like they'd be harder to move in than your roller-skates," he commented. "Let's get them off you. I can't imagine they'd be comfortable to sleep in."

He helped her take off the strappy heels she'd been wearing and smiled up at her. "Better?"

"Yep," she nodded. "I'm gonna go to sleep."

Ben felt an immense amount of relief.  _Sleep_  meant no awkward drunk conversations, and he was really, really not prepared for a drunk Rey and whatever conversations she might try to initiate.

"That's probably a good idea."

Rey didn't seem to be in a rush to leave the chair despite the claim that she was going to sleep, so Ben decided to pick her up again. She hummed softly, her eyes still closed as he gently laid her down on the futon he'd made up.

"Thanks," she said softly, cuddling into the blanket.

Part of him spent a minute debating whether he should give her one of his sweaters, or whether he should give up all pretenses and just spend the rest of the evening holding her while she slept. He wasn't above admitting to himself that he desperately missed being able to do that, but the sensible voice in his head - the one that was sounding more and more like Hux - said that would just confuse her.

And with his luck, it would end up confusing him, too. There was a reason he didn't  _cuddle_  with women he was attracted to and-

He swallowed hard as his mind flashed back to the time they'd been in her bed, her head over his heart, their limbs tangled, falling asleep to the sound of each other's breathing. For a moment he wished things were still that simple.

But things weren't simple anymore. Now her feelings were involved, and things were complicated, questionable, and honestly, a bit terrifying.

Against his better judgement he leaned down over her, and pulled her in for a hug, letting her wrap her arms around his neck. In an instant he realized his mistake, because he knew he wouldn't be able to forget the flowery scent of her shampoo, or the way she sighed against him, or the way her lips brushed gently against his ear when she whispered, "I miss you, Ben."

He shivered when she said his name, and that's all it took for him to know that he should have let her sleep on Hux and Phasma's couch.

Ben let her go after a moment that was over far too quickly, and smiled down at her, softly brushed some of the hair out of her face, and placed a water bottle next to her pillow.

"I miss you too, starlight," he said quietly. "Now get some sleep."

Then he added, with a hint of a smirk, "We'll talk about your drinking in the morning."

He gave her one last look before turning and heading toward his bedroom. Just before closing the door behind him, he heard her soft words.

"Ben," she whispered, in a surprisingly coherent, but small, pleading voice, "you know how I feel about you, right? I'm not going to get over it. I'm sorry. I don't think I can. I- I think I love you."

He shut his eyes and let out a long, silent breath that was full of more confusion than he'd ever expected to feel around Rey. Pretending he hadn't heard that was going to feel like a knife going through his heart, but he wasn't ready to have that conversation with her...or with himself.

 _Don't bother,_ a voice in his head warned _, you'd just disappoint her._

Ben went into his room and leaned against his bedroom door, hearing the latch click closed behind him. After a moment he let himself slide down, sinking to the floor until he sat, his back pressed against the door with his knees folded up in front of him. He wrapped his arms around his folded legs, and took deep breaths until he'd successfully convinced himself not to go back out into the living room.

He'd just give her another hug. Maybe kiss her forehead, or fall asleep next to her, wrap her in his arms and let her nuzzle into his chest in the wonderful, heartwarming way she did, or-

Nothing could happen until morning, obviously, with Rey as drunk as she was, but if they woke up next to each other…

Suddenly he found himself struggling to think of anything but how her undoubtedly soft, light pink lips would look with morning's daylight streaming in through the windows, and how they'd feel...if she'd prefer to be kissed slowly and gently, or if she'd moan into him if he kissed her deeply enough-

_No._

He knew better than to think that kissing Rey was a good idea. No good would come of it, so he had no idea what to do about the fact that, lately, he was having an impossible time getting the thought out of his head.

For some reason it took all his self-control to avoid going back out into the living room.

* * *

The smell of bacon woke her up.

Well, it was either that, or the splitting headache.

Rey sat up with a moan, and clutched her head.

It took her ten seconds or so to remember at least  _some_  of the events from the evening before, and it took her approximately fifteen seconds to decide she wouldn't be drinking again for a while. It took her an extra thirty seconds to start panicking and wondering where the hell her clothes had gone.

Rey quickly pulled the unfamiliar fluffy blanket up over her shoulders, suddenly very aware that she was only in underwear in an unknown location. She glanced around nervously and noticed, with immense relief, that she was in Ben's apartment.

So, she was safe, but why the _hell_  was she nearly naked on Ben's futon?

(Pity it wasn't his bed.)

Rey shook the thought from her mind and winced at the pain that came with the movement. The headache was awful, and she groaned as she imagined all the ways in which she'd probably made a complete idiot out of herself the night before.

After a minute, she took a deep breath, and decided she needed to talk to Ben eventually. Hopefully he'd have some answers.

"Uh, Ben?"

He poked his head out of the kitchen, "Oh hey, you're awake. Good. I'm cooking breakfast, and we're going to have a talk about drinking responsibly."

"Wonderful," she muttered sarcastically, "before then, maybe you could tell me where my clothes are?"

He popped his head out of the kitchen again, but this time his eyes had gone wide and his cheeks were stained red. He ducked back into the kitchen quickly before asking, "You're- you're  _not wearing them?"_

"Well, it's a lot less than I put on last night, but, I mean, I'm wearing  _some_ of them. Sort of..." Rey rolled her eyes impatiently and asked dryly, "Do you really need me to describe what I'm wearing to you? Is that somehow relevant?"

She heard a loud crashing noise from the kitchen and then a strained, "Nope. Nope, I'm good. That would- uh," she heard him let out a nervous laugh, "Nope."

Rey sighed, and looked around, finally noticing her clothes balled up on the floor by the futon. "Oh, I found them," she replied, "I was probably too warm. I must have taken them off at some point. Sorry, it's not the first time that's happened."

Ben came out of the kitchen wearing a stunned expression, and it didn't take her long to realize he was doing his best to avoid looking in her direction.

"Not a problem," he said finally, his voice coming out slowly, and a bit strangled, "...but let me get you some clean clothes. At least you'll be more comfortable. And...uh…" he blinked, "breakfast will be ready by the time you're done changing. Bacon, eggs and toast sound ok?"

"Perfect," she nodded. Rey glanced around, considering her options, and settled for wrapping herself further into the blanket she was laying under.

Ben returned a second later with a small pile of folded clothes that included another soft cotton band t-shirt and a pair of dark gray sweatpants that were going to be huge on her. He rushed back into the kitchen, probably to finish breakfast, while she pulled on what he'd given her, rolling the sweatpants up a considerable amount to help them fit better.

She tried not to swoon at how good the t-shirt smelled, and she knew right away that Ben wouldn't be getting it back anytime soon. Just like the other clothes he'd loaned her.

"Okay, we've got buttered toast, fried eggs, and bacon," Ben announced, carrying a couple of plates out of the kitchen.

Rey glanced at him for a moment, noticing he was acting a bit more normal, and decided to join him at the dining room table. Once he placed a plate in front of her, she inhaled deeply and dug in immediately.

"Kind of a greasy breakfast, but that always seems to help a hangover," he explained. "Also," he handed her a small white bottle, and a glass of water, "for your headache. There's no way you don't have one."

She nodded, and took another large bite of toast while opening the bottle of ibuprofen, immediately swallowing two of the pills. "Thanks, I've never had a headache this bad."

"I'm not surprised," Ben scoffed, "You were incredibly drunk. Y'know, if you ever drink that much again - and, I'd really prefer you didn't - you should try making yourself sick. At least you'd get some of the alcohol out of your system."

"I tried," she shrugged. "Can't. No gag reflex."

She hadn't  _intended_ for that to come out the way it did, but Rey couldn't help but snort when Ben suddenly struggled not to spit out the orange juice he'd just taken a large drink of. She carefully schooled her expression back to something neutral as he hacked and coughed, finally saying, "Oh, well, that's...inconvenient, I guess."

"Not really," she said innocently, smiling sweetly.

Ben blinked and took a slow, deep breath before saying, "Uh,  _anyway_ , do you have any idea how drunk you were last night?"

Rey winced, trying to remember the evening's activities. "Uhhh…"

His fork dropped with a loud clatter, and he pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "You don't even remember how you got here, do you?" He groaned, "You don't remember last night?"

Rey scrunched her nose and shook her head. "Sorry, no."

Ben let out a long exhale, and said, "You're really, really lucky someone was watching out for you, sweetheart." He swallowed anxiously, "Last night could have gone very... _differently_. Thankfully, you managed to drunk dial Phasma, and she picked you up and brought you here."

"Oh," Rey said softly, "I figured I'd called you or something."

"I wish you had," he admitted. "The only reason I found out about any of this was because I heard Phasma and Hux debating what to do in the hallway. You're lucky they didn't bring you back to Luke's."

Rey's eyes went wide. "Oh, shit. I didn't even think of that."

"Trust me," Ben said dryly, "Luke would not have been impressed to see you last night. No offense, but you were a bit of a mess. You must have had a lot to drink."

"I...uh...didn't say anything weird last night, right?" she asked nervously.

Ben cleared his throat and said casually, "You really don't remember anything from last night?"

"No," she replied slowly, her eyes growing wide in horror, "Why?"

Much to her relief, Ben just shrugged, and looked away. "Oh, it's nothing. You just must have had a lot to drink, that's all."

"Oh," she said, relief flooding her body, "Well...yeah, I guess I did."

He nodded, and said, "Don't think you're getting out of this without a lecture. I was really worried last night. You were so drunk you could barely make it into the apartment. I ended up carrying you in." He looked over at her, his dark eyes swimming with concern, "I'll never mind taking care of you, but please don't drink that much again, Rey."

"I'm sorry, I didn't really think-"

"About how much it would worry anyone who cares about you?" he interrupted. "Yeah, obviously. Look," he sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, "I get that you're in college, and people usually do this stuff in college. I've been there, I remember. But there's a huge difference between having a few drinks with friends and going to a party with no plans of how you're getting home, then getting so drunk you don't remember taking your clothes off or how you got to where you fell asleep.

"I mean, you don't even  _remember_ last night," he got a bit louder, and frustration dripped from every word, "what if you'd gotten separated from your friends, and some guy had-" he let out a sharp exhale, "Rey, you have  _no_ idea how-" he paused, working his lips together, "If-if you'd ended up somewhere else last night-"

He stopped himself quickly, closed his eyes, and took a few deep breaths. It seemed he didn't plan to finish any of the sentences he'd started, and Rey already felt her cheeks burning with embarrassment.

"Ben, none of those things happened," she said quietly. "And, I'm sorry. I don't know what else you want me to say."

He sighed. "Just promise me you won't drink that much again, and," he hesitated, "look, if you ever do, or if you ever get in a situation you aren't comfortable in, promise you'll call me. I won't even give you a lecture. I'll pick you up, let you crash here, give you some pajamas, insist on making you drink a lot of water, and maybe shoot you a few disappointed looks over breakfast. Ok? Can you do that?"

Rey paused for a moment, and nodded. "Yeah, of course."

There was a sigh of relief from Ben, and she suddenly felt a sharp pang of guilt as she realized how worried he'd been. But...he wasn't mad. He just wanted to take care of her, and that- well, somehow that simultaneously made her feel warm and fuzzy, and very guilty.

"Ben, I really am sorry." She reached out and took his hand, clutching it tightly. "I had no idea. I'd never been drunk before. I didn't realize how much I'd had until it hit me."

He looked down at their hands gave her a hint of a reassuring smile. "It's okay, but please be careful. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you." He let out a single, breathy laugh and shook his head, saying, "Honestly, someone would probably end up in jail, and I'm guessing it'd be me. I just- I need you to be safe."

Something caught in her throat when she saw the look in his eyes, and she nodded.

After a moment he spoke up again, in a quiet, nervous voice. "Hey, can- uh- would it be weird if I hugged you?"

A slow smile stretched across her face as she said softly, "No. No, that wouldn't be weird at all."

* * *

Her preference would have been to curl up on the futon after breakfast (and possibly ask him to join her), but unfortunately Ben had to be at work for a class by noon, and she'd promised to meet Poe for lunch at the diner before their afternoon training began.

Ben had wrapped her in a tight hug after breakfast, and it hit her all at once how much she'd missed being in his arms. It confirmed that she never wanted them to have another reason to feel uncomfortable around each other again, so she'd taken a deep breath and told him, "I'm sorry...about everything. Can we forget the stuff I said? Just pretend it never happened? Y'know,  _that night?"_

It hadn't been easy to get out, but it's as if, when he hugged her, all the advice Rose had given her finally clicked. Something told her the girl was right...maybe they'd have something, but Ben had made it abundantly clear that he didn't want anything right now, and Rey was determined to be content with their friendship.

It had taken him a minute to work out what she meant, and when he did Rey was caught off-guard, because he reacted as though he'd been slapped. She'd expected him to be relieved, but instead he'd worked his lips together for a moment before he looked away and finally saying in a hardened tone, "Yeah, sure."

Rey really wasn't sure what to make of his reaction, but he'd pulled her back in for another hug, so it couldn't have been  _that_  bad.

It had been an odd morning, but Ben dropped her off at the Dojang a little before noon so she could shower and find reasonable shoes before meeting Poe. Realistically, she knew she should have put on different clothing when she stepped out of the shower, but the minute she took another look at the clothes Ben had handed her just hours before, she knew she'd be putting them back on.

She'd gotten dressed and rushed over to the diner, then plopped gracefully into the booth across from Poe...and interestingly enough,  _Finn._

Poe took one look at her before his jaw dropped.

" _Is that his shirt?"_

Rey blinked, and hid behind a menu before her friends could see her cheeks turn red.

"So," she said casually, "did you two have fun last night?"

Poe grabbed the menu from her and said, "One, don't change the subject. Two, you order the same thing every time we're here, so stop hiding behind the menu - we know you don't need to see it. Three…" he huffed and said, "Okay, I have a feeling I don't want to know, but Rey, why are you wearing Ben Solo's clothes?"

Finn's eyebrows shot up and suddenly he was mirroring Poe's expression. "Holy shit, did you and Ben- ...isn't he like  _twenty-five?"_

"Oh my G _od_ , nothing happened!" she hissed, gesturing at them to  _shut up and be quiet_. "Phasma brought me to their apartment building and I slept on his futon."

Finn seemed satisfied with that answer, but Poe looked at her suspiciously. "So, Phasma left you with Ben, and you crashed on his couch...but that really doesn't explain why you're in his clothes."

That was when Rey's mouth opened silently, then shut quickly since she wasn't exactly sure how to explain. She did that a few more times and her friends started staring at her.

Maz,  _bless her,_ had perfect timing.

"What can I get you kids?" the woman asked. She didn't often take orders, but she always seemed to come over and say hi whenever Rey came in with friends during her off-hours.

Finn and Poe stared a bit longer until Maz cleared her throat and snapped them out of it. They both ordered as if they were in a fog, and Rey quietly asked for her usual, and she  _almost_ thought she'd caught a break.

Until Maz let out a low chuckle and said, "Couldn't help but overhear... _Solo,_  huh, girlie? I was wonderin' when that would happen."

Rey groaned and let her head fall into her hands before she muttered, "Maz, I swear I'll work overtime this week without extra pay if we never  _ever_  speak of this again."

The woman cackled and walked off in the direction of the kitchen, leaving Rey to deal with her friends.

She looked up at them and saw that they were both wearing curious expressions.

"It  _really_  wasn't like that," she said.

Poe snorted, and he muttered, "Are you sure? Because with him it usually is."

A smirk grew across Finn's face as he said, "Sorry, but from where we're sitting, it looks like you ended up naked at some point in the last twelve hours and the fact that you keep blushing kinda speaks volumes, Rey."

"Did he at least make you breakfast after?" Poe asked dryly, clearly far less amused by the situation as Finn was.

She was too hungover for this bullshit.

Rey rolled her eyes. "He wasn't in the room when I changed, he made us  _both_  breakfast, and unless hugging is now scandalous, nothing happened, you  _assholes_." She folded her arms over her chest and huffed, "Okay, are we done now? Is the interrogation over? Are you both satisfied, or would you like more information? Maybe you'd be curious to hear how the toast was a bit overdone? Or, ooh," she said sarcastically, "how about the fact that he gave me ibuprofen for my headache? That's juicy."

"Alright, alright, we get it," Poe interrupted.

" _And?"_

Poe's eyes narrowed, but he said, " _And_  we'll stop suggesting things. But Rey, I still don't think he's a good guy to be-"

"Uh-uh," she stopped him, "Nothing's going on between us, and that's all you need to know. I will let you know if I want to talk about things, and I appreciate that you care, but it's nobody's business - especially since nothing's going on."

"Fine," Poe sighed.

Good," she said, grinning. "So then let's talk about what  _you_ guys did last night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A new poomse, making a move, and an extra stripe.
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> Attack: This was super fun to write. I've had the whole "Rey gets drunk and Phasma has to babysit" thing planned for a while. The kid's...well, not a kid anymore. Poor Ben. Poor, poor Ben. He's getting to the point where he has no idea what to do with himself, or with his not-oblivious friend who oh-so-casually drops suggestive comments. If you hear evil cackling, it's probably me.
> 
> Onfire: I am writing this note as I'm about to fall asleep. These scenes are cute, and you may have noticed a bit less intensity on Ben's part when from his perspective. That's intentional. He's not entirely driven off the deep-end yet folks. Most of the chapter can be credited to Attack, who is amazing at writing college party scenes and hangovers and stuff, considering I was the weird kid who stayed inside on a Friday night.
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)


	29. Bodan, Third Stripe, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you believe we were actually going to try and make "Bodan, Third Stripe" into one chapter? Yeah, no. Seriously, these two chapters are two of our longest...sometimes all the planning in the world can't compensate for having a particularly wordy coauthor.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


Rey resisted the urge to shift her weight.

Back stance was always the hardest position for her to maintain for any period of time. She didn't know what it was, but she instinctively disliked putting most of her weight on her back foot. She knew it was so she'd be able to react better to incoming threats with her lead leg, while using her back as the balance column on which to strike from, but prolonged stay in back stance usually meant sore thighs and weary feet.

"Next set! Kihap!"

She spun in place, bringing up her knife hand blocks as he'd taught her. She didn't linger long in that position, and chambered her leg up for the double-side kick. She felt the snap of her dobok after her midsection kick, and couldn't stop how inordinately pleased she felt at that. That pleasure was soon gone as she tried to rechamber, and realized she'd overbalanced herself in her kick, resulting in her dropping the leg and falling into an awkward bastardized front stance instead.

"Kuman!"

Wincing, Rey stood up straight, and took the now customary breath and pushed out with her hands cupping the air, forming a soft triangle, returning to Koryo's starting position.

"You alright there, Rey?" Master Luke asked from the side. His voice was considerably more gentle than before, when he'd been injecting steel into every command.

No, she wasn't, but she'd been looking forward to Koryo training for so long she didn't want to ruin her chances. "I- yes sir."

"Need to take a break?"

"No sir."

"Well, tough, because we're taking one anyway," he replied. His voice was dry and blunt. "Chiryat. Kungyet."

Rey found herself following the commands before they'd even registered. When she rose from her bow, she met his penetrating gaze with her own defiant stare.

"You're having trouble with this, one," Luke noted. He grabbed a water bottle by the foot of the wall and tossed it to her. She caught it and took a huge grateful gulp to drown the burning and revolting mass that had been building in her chest the more she practised. Koryo was technically more advanced than any of the previous poomse she'd worked on, but even so, she'd thought she'd been prepared for the difficulty. She'd thought wrong.

She let the bottle go with a satisfying gasp for air.

"I just need to practice more, right?" she panted, rolling her neck and offering the bottle back to Master Luke. He took it and placed it back on the floor.

"Practice isn't the problem here," he said, sitting down and motioning for her to do so as well, "I've seen how much effort you've been putting into our sessions. You've got no shortage of motivation for finally learning this but, kid, you don't get past a wall by throwing yourself at it harder. Unless you want brain trauma. Sometimes you need to take a step back and look at it from another angle."

Rey's face crinkled. Their one-on-one sessions had recently focused primarily on the various poomse forms, their usual grueling training sessions that left her weary and exhausted now swapped for hours of practicing motions that she'd long learned. She kept her thoughts to herself though, because he'd finally started teaching her the first steps of Koryo.

Except, Koryo seemed to be impossible to get right. At least at a level acceptable enough for Master Luke.

"Then what's my problem? What am I doing wrong?"

Master Luke hummed and looked down at the floor, scratching his scraggly chin. "Do you know what 'Koryo' means?" he said, answering her question with a question.

Rey did  _not_  groan. She loved Master Luke and appreciated everything he'd ever done for her, but there were some things she could do without and his habit of turning most things into philosophical discussions were at the top of the list. So, she did  _not_  groan out loud, even if the inside of her headspace had just turned into an echo chamber of  _Why._

"I don't," she answered instead, because that's what good and grateful students do. They don't mouth off to their teacher. Much. Then, because she knew how this song-and-dance went, she decided to jump straight into it by asking, "What does it mean?"

"It's the name of an old Korean dynasty," Luke said simply, crossing his arms, "And that's all I'm going to tell you."

"I- what?" Rey blinked, suddenly off-kilter.  _No lecture?_

He shot her an amused look. "I'm not going to just give you the answer this time, kid."

"Why not?"

"Because," he said slowly and as if speaking to a very slow child, "you're an adult. Because you're almost a black belt yourself. You shouldn't be looking to just me to solve your problems, kid. I'll help you, in as much as a teacher can, but this is one thing I'm not just telling you. Believe me, you'll thank me later."

"So...what? I just keep messing it up and falling over myself?"

That didn't sound very appealing to Rey.

"Falling over myself is how I got to be a Master in the first place, Rey," Luke chided, "I fall over myself all the time. Or have you not seen how terrible I am with technology?"

"That's different!"

"How so?" he asked, mockingly amazed and blue eyes twinkling, "I can't even send an email without messing up some bizarre punctuation rules. And don't think I haven't heard you and your friends mock the television in the living room."

That stopped her short. "You've heard that?"

"That and more," he nodded, as if he hadn't just admitted to overhearing things she and her friends had discussed, "Honestly, when you kids get going, it's impossible not to overhear you. My point is though, I'm not letting something like that stop me. I'm not letting it define my handling of technology."

Something tiny and spiteful decided to make its presence known through her voice. It tasted bitter and dark when she spat out, "And I suppose I am?"

"You are," Master Luke said succinctly. "You keep attacking Koryo like it's offended you."

"Well, why did you wait so long to start teaching me it, then?" she demanded, "I know you started teaching the others as soon as  _they_  got promoted to Bodan. I got mine months ago, so why wait until now if I'm not ready?"

A harsh aggrieved sigh left Master Luke as he closed his eyes. Outside the sun was on its slow descent over the horizon, leaving the Dojang decorated in orange and red hues that reminded Rey of a field of grass, burning in a summer sun. Of course, summer was far behind them, and now they were approaching the usual fall medley of leaves and branches and winds that went where they pleased.

They'd been practicing for hours now. Hours of failing at one of the most crucial requirements to getting her black belt.

And now being told by Luke that she was doing something wrong, but that he wasn't going to help her with it?

"Why won't you help me?" she asked, her voice a whisper.

"Why do you think I'm not?" he answered, voice hoarse. Something about his reaction seemed...odd.

Rey took a moment to calm herself and then looked at him. Really  _looked_  at him.

His shoulders were sagging. He'd always carried himself confidently, tall in a way that had nothing to do with physical height, and powerful in a way that belied his gentle exterior, and now Rey realized just how much he'd changed since she'd seen him even a little over four years ago. He'd lost weight, too. The differences were minor, but they were there, and for a man as apparently as sure of himself as he was normally, they were alarming.

It wasn't much, and none of the other students seemed to have noticed, what with them starting to come in in frequently smaller groups and only a few times a week.

"Master Luke, are you alright?" she asked.

That seemed to jolt him from his thoughts. He coughed into his hand. "Yes, sorry," he muttered, opening his eyes and giving her a wry grin, "You just reminded me a lot of Ben then."

"Really?" She knew Ben was snippy and angry a lot of the times, but she'd never imagined him lashing out during training like this. Outside of it, when the people he cared about were hurt or when his family became involved? Yeah, she'd seen it, but never during training.

Master Luke snorted.

"What's with that look? You know he'd been living with me since he was barely a teenager didn't you?" He shook his head ruefully, "Do you know how long I held Ben back before I let him test for Black Belt?"

She goggled at the man, more than a little amazed at how brazen the decision was. "You held him  _back_?"

"Of course I did, have you met him?" Luke snarked back, "Do you really think I would just let him coast by because he's my nephew and he happened to live with me?

"By the time he finally achieved Black Belt, I'd been training him for...oh, I'd say eight years," Luke mused, before shaking his head, "He and I used to have conversations much like this one."

"Eight years?!" she said, aghast, "But that's like twice the amount of time than normal!"

"You know my policy on Black Belt promotion," Luke shrugged carelessly. "He'd started with me even before he came to live here, which is partly why I took him in the first place. He'd used his training to hurt people." His hands, which were resting in his lap, had bunched up into fists. "I was determined to put a stop to it. And up until recently…."

Alarm was twinging in the back of her head.

"Sir? What do you mean," Rey hesitated, " _until recently?_ "

"My point is, kid, that you remind me a lot of Ben," he said, once again ignoring her question. "Prideful. Stubborn. Always wanting to move forward, always wanting to just get to the next step. Never just looking at where you are and appreciating it." He jabbed a finger in her direction. "I promoted him when he was twenty years old, Rey. I'm willing to wait until you're thirty. Unless you show me you've got what it takes, and that includes accepting your master's judgement on when you should and shouldn't learn certain things."

Rey looked at the finger pointed at her face and then back at the man it belonged to. His face was severe, and carved from stone in its hardness. But she could also see the hurt and the resignation in his eyes, things she had no explanation for but wanted to wipe away nonetheless.

"Are we clear?" he asked roughly.

She looked down at her knees, head bowed. "Yes, Master Luke."

* * *

It took Rose less than a month to call it quits on dorm-living after the party they'd all followed her roommate to. Rey wasn't clear on the details, but apparently there'd been some sort of incident involving the roommate, a guy, and a light-sleeping Rose. After seeing the horror on Rose's face when Rey asked, she was pretty sure he didn't  _want_  the details.

Rose had slept over at Luke's apartment for nearly a week, commuting to classes with Rey each day when Ben called Rey with the news that miraculously, there was an apartment available in his building. It was on the ground floor, which wasn't preferable, but it had been vacated unexpectedly, meaning the landlord was a bit desperate with winter coming up, and they were willing to give the girls a deal since two of their best tenants (Ben and Hux) were vouching for them.

How Ben and Hux were considered two of the  _best tenants_ , Rey wasn't sure, but she certainly wasn't going to complain.

The girls had nearly jumped for joy, and after a bit of math, they'd realized the cost was actually cheaper than living in the dorms. Leia contacted Rey no less than ten minutes after they'd gotten the information from Ben, explaining that she'd already put money aside for when Rey inevitably decided dorm living was preferable to living with a grumpy old man, and she was happy to send the check to a landlord rather than the college, if that was what Rey wanted.

It was. It really,  _really_ was.

A voice snapped Rey out of her happy memories from the previous week, and she beamed with joy at Rose, who said, "Poe wants to know where we want the couch."

In the vein of surprising twists that came from having people actually care, Poe, Finn and the others all volunteered to help the girls move their things. Except for Carmen, but considering she was the reason Rose knew far more about voyeurism than she'd ever wanted, it was no great loss.

"Literally anywhere," Rey deadpanned, before making a noise that most certainly was  _not_  a squeal, because eighteen-year-old martial artists didn't  _squeal_. "Rose, we're  _roommates!"_

"I know!" the girl enthused, joining in the squeaking. "This is crazy! It's going to be like a constant sleepover!"

"Sure, until one of you brings home a guy and things get awkward," Phasma offered breezily, dropping a box marked 'Boards' onto the floor, "Personally, I never really got the whole roommate thing. Also, Rey, did you seriously keep every board you've broken?"

To punctuate this statement, there came a muffled curse from someone outside, undoubtedly carrying the box marked 'More Boards'.

Rey glanced over at Luke, who'd been helping unpack, asking, "Isn't that normal?"

"I still have mine," Luke offered. "Looks like you're the crazy one, Phasma."

The woman sighed dramatically, "Well, that's not the first time someone's said that. Alright, I'd love to stay and help lug more boxes, but I have to be at work." She gave Rey a friendly smile and said, "Welcome to the building. Don't put up with any shit from the boys. Ben and Hux, I mean." Then Phasma paused on her way out and said, "Actually, just don't put up with any shit. From anyone. Ever." She chuckled, and muttered, "God, I should be an inspirational speaker."

Rey laughed awkwardly and nodded, waving goodbye.

Luke shook his head at the woman, and chuckled as he carried a few boxes marked 'Kitchen' into their appropriate room. He'd declared that morning that he'd unpack the kitchen for Rey and Rose while the girls unpacked their bedrooms. The lifting of boxes and furniture had been delegated to Poe and Finn, the unwitting volunteers, and Ben, who'd miraculously managed to take the day off.

Leia, Rey realized, was like the fairy godmother she'd never had and always wanted. The woman had met them at the apartment with a small moving truck filled with older, but very nice, furniture claiming she'd chosen to replace some of the pieces in her own house. When Rey and Rose stammered various sentence fragments that more or less boiled down to  _we couldn't possibly accept this_ , Leia had laughed and said, "If you don't, I'm dropping it off at the Salvation Army."

So naturally, they accepted (albeit, reluctantly), and Ben, Poe, and Finn made quick work of bringing it all in. By the time the furniture was in, the girls couldn't help but look around in shock. They'd planned on slowly collecting pieces as they had the money, but thanks to Leia's insistence, it wasn't really necessary.

"Y'know, I think joining Taekwondo was the best decision you ever made," Rose laughed, when they were in private. The girls had been sent off to unpack their bedrooms, and they'd decided to unpack one at a time, starting with Rose's.

She'd just opened a large box that turned out to be jam-packed with books, and asked, "Do you want these alphabetical by author, book name, or should they be by genre? And yeah, joining Taekwondo was…" she sighed, "I mean, it changed my life, Rose."

"By author," the girl replied, "what sort of monster does it by book name?"

Rey guffawed, and said, "Would you believe Ben organizes his by size?"

After a moment, she turned to see why Rose hadn't responded. The girl was staring at her in mock horror (well, maybe it was just real horror) and after a minute she replied dryly, "Okay, I know you like him and all but there's something  _truly_  wrong with that man."

"Oh stop," Rey giggled, "there's nothing wrong with him!"

Rose rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically, "I'd judge you, but I know you can't help it. After all, love is blind." She turned to fluff a pillow on the bed (it was a gorgeous wooden frame with a headboard. A freaking headboard. Rey had no idea what it was for) she'd just made and then, her voice took on a hesitant tone as she asked, "Hey, Rey, are you sure it's going to be a good idea to live in the same building as Ben?"

Rey was not paying attention as she kept taking the books out and sorting them by author.

From behind her Rose sighed again, and that was what finally gave Rey pause. Her voice was somber as she said, "Aren't things a little weird between you two? After everything that's happened?"

Putting down the book in her hands, Rey turned to face newly-dubbed roommate. She'd told Rose everything a while back, both because she needed someone to have the full story, and because she was Rose, the girl who'd never so much as dare to utter the words  _I told you so_.

"Not anymore," Rey shrugged, staring at Rose, who'd looked away. "I mean, maybe a little? But I think we've just sorta put it behind us."

"Okay," Rose nodded, "Well...that's good. But you don't think he's been acting different?"

Rey frowned. "Different how? Like, more awkward? Because, sure, but that's not really surprising, considering."

"No, not like that." Rose sat at the edge of the bed and took a deep breath, finally meeting Rey's eyes. "He's been kind of...off."

Rey didn't shiver when Rose said that last word in a hush. She didn't, but only because she nearly jumped out of her skin when the subject of their conversation himself showed up and knocked on the doorway.

"Hey, Poe and Finn want to know where do you want the chest," he rumbled, carrying what looked like a rolling chair under his arm.

It took Rey a moment to catch up from where her thoughts had gone. For a moment she'd forgotten he was helping them move in. Shaking her head, she mumbled something incoherent and gestured in the direction of where her room was going to be. She didn't even know that Leia had a chest, nor why she thought Rey would need one.

With a nod at both of them, Ben departed, huffing lightly as he hefted the chair over his shoulder to get by a particularly large stack of boxes. When he was gone, Rose walked over to the door and gently closed it.

"So, I don't know him well but when we were in Taekwondo he was always so calm and controlled. I know people change and stuff, but…" she paused, "he gets really angry, now. Violent, even. You didn't see how he reacted to Liam at the diner. It was," she swallowed, and continued quietly, "it was kinda scary, actually. I'm not saying he's not a nice guy. I'm just saying...be careful."

"I- I-" Rey stammered, then turned away. "You probably just misunderstood. Ben's... _wonderful_. I've seen him get angry, sure, but he'd  _never_  hurt me, or anyone else."

"I'm sure that's probably true," Rose said quickly. "Not intentionally, at lea-"

"No, I mean  _never_. Intentionally or not," Rey snapped.

Rose took a deep breath and said softly, "I hope you're right, Rey." And then she quietly repeated the words she'd said in jest earlier, her tone far more somber than before.

"But, don't forget. Love is blind."

* * *

Finally, at some point that evening, the dust settled, and everything quieted down.

Breaking down her billionth box of the day, full of knick-knacks the orphan girl in Rey never thought she'd need, let alone have, she glanced over at Ben and decided to broach a subject that had been on her mind since the news had become  _really real_. "So, you sure you don't mind having me live in this building? I mean, what if I show up trashed on your doorstep again?"

Ben paused in his rummaging, before standing up and cracking his back, letting out a satisfying sigh. His voice was perfectly neutral, if a little deadpan when he said, with a completely straight face, "As long as you keep your clothes on next time."

Rey coughed awkwardly at the reminder of her probably very uninhibited drunken self.

"Don't remind me," she groaned, "I'm  _never_  drinking that much again."

"I'd appreciate that. The less I have to overhear Hux and Phasma's weird flirting in the hall, the better," Ben nodded. He looked like he was about to say something extra, but blushed instead. He hesitated, and finally said softly, "And now if you ever need me I won't be far."

Putting down the silverware in her hands (which she was pretty sure were made of actual  _silver_  - What the hell, Leia?), Rey faced him. He wasn't looking at her when he said that, which was just as well, because otherwise he'd have seen the luminescent blush rising in her face. Part of her wanted to say something along the lines of  _Ben, you've never been closer_ , but then thought better because life did not usually work out the way it did in romance novels.

Instead, she smiled, and took a step closer to hug him, relishing in his warmth as his arms drew her in closer.

And then she heard a throat clear from behind her, over by the kitchen. All the warmth in the world couldn't have made up for the sudden Ice Age that started in her throat and quickly spread to the rest of her body. She felt Ben tense instinctively, and when she looked up she saw him frowning the the direction of the kitchen doorway. He didn't let her go, though, so that was a small comfort. The others had begged off from the unpacking for a variety of reasons, but they'd completely forgotten that Luke was still in the apartment, silently unpacking everything.

"Which one of you wants to explain?" Luke asked, his voice holding a carefully controlled lightness to it that Rey had only seen used in the Dojang, when students were particularly uppity, "Because, I  _think_  I just heard something about Rey getting - how did you put it? -  _trashed?_  And," Luke's voice deepened and gained a hint of a threatening edge, "Do I even want to know what that  _keeping her clothes on_  comment was about?"

There was something piercing and terrifying about being asked that question by Luke. Any response she made would have to be carefully reviewed, even if nothing had happened, because at the core of it all what had mattered most was that Rey kinda wished that something  _had_  happened.

Ben carefully untangled himself from her so she could face Luke. She felt him take her hand briefly, and gave it a comforting squeeze, before letting go and taking a micro-step back that stretched forever all the same.

"It's not  _nearly_  as bad as it sounds," Rey smiled nervously. "I just crashed on his futon and woke up really hungover. Lesson learned, trust me."

Luke's eyes narrowed on hers as he ground out the words, "Is that so?"

She nodded, hoping he'd let it go.

But then Luke's eyes dropped to where her and Ben's hands had met, and his nostrils flared with a volcanic breath. "Why don't I tell you what it sounds like to me, kid?" He licked his lips and crossed his arms. "It  _sounds_ like you, and likely, your friends, got drunk like typical college students sometimes do. And it  _sounds_ like that somehow ended up with you staying with…" he paused, and said in a voice that seemed to pack a mountain's worth of meaning, " _my nephew._ "

Luke spun, and turned to pace across a spot on the floor that, at this point, would probably end up looking like a trench.

"I suppose I should be glad to hear that you slept on the futon, but that begs the question-" he suddenly stopped pacing and glared daggers at Ben, "-where did  _you_  end up sleeping?"

Ben huffed, and replied, with a touch too much irreverence, "In my bed, Luke. She was drunk, and really, if we were going to sleep in the same spot,  _why_  would I have picked a lumpy futon over my own bed?"

"This isn't isn't a good time for you to get smart with me," Luke warned. "Ben, she's  _eighteen!"_

Rey froze as she heard Ben release a low and harsh sound, much like a wolf's growl. "You don't think I've  _noticed_  that Luke?"

"Actually I think you noticing that is part of the problem," Luke shot back.

Ben scoffed, and shook his head. "Y'know, I thought maybe, just  _maybe_ , if you ever found out about her drinking that night you'd appreciate what I did. You want to know what happened?" he snapped.

"Considering the lengths you went to just to keep it hidden from me? Yes."

A noise of disgust escaped Ben's mouth. "Fine! Phasma showed up here with Rey - yeah,  _Phasma_. That Taekwondo Master you were so chummy with earlier - so what the hell would you have wanted me to do?  _Yes_  she stayed here, because I knew you'd react just like this."

"Just like  _what?"_  Luke retorted, voice caustic and foreign to Rey's ears, "Worried? Concerned?"

"Like it's my fault!" Ben said, through gnashed teeth. His breathing had turned ragged and rough somewhere in the conversation. "As if I have any control over what Rey or her friends do. I made up the futon - like  _you taught me to_  in case someone needed a place to stay! I loaned her some comfortable clothes, cooked her breakfast when she woke up, and gave her the same lecture  _you_ gave  _me_ , so  _please_ , tell me what the  _fuck_  I did wrong."

Ben finished his tirade by taking a single step that threatened to breach the gap between them in one predatory swoop. The walls seemed to bend and cave outwards with the force of their presence. Rey had to actively fight the the instinct the hide, as she once did the night Ben had left the Dojang.

Letting out a sharp exhale, Luke narrowed his eyes at his nephew before flicking over to Rey, who'd taken a few steps away from the mounting fight. His voice was neutral and gray as he asked her, never taking his eyes off Ben, "Rey, is that true?"

"Yeah," she said slowly, her mouth dry. Her bones felt like jelly as she stood between the two of them. They were each giants in their own way, and getting between them felt like running out into traffic with a blindfold on. "I don't really see why you're getting so mad at Ben. I knew you'd be mad at me, but he didn't do anything wrong, unless you count not telling you."

Which, she supposed, was pretty wrong in and of itself. If something had happened to her, she didn't even want to imagine how he would have reacted.

Finally, after a geological era of quiet contemplation as he and Ben assessed each other, Luke sighed and wiped a hand down his face. "Okay. Okay...I'm sorry, I shouldn't have reacted that way." He pulled his lips into a half-hearted smile and addressed her with quiet subdued humility in stark contrast with his previous demeanor, "I'm sorry, kid, I just get worried about you."

She took a cautious step forward, touching Ben light enough on the arm to get him to back away. Her head felt muffled as she approached Luke. A myriad of thoughts and explanations came to mind, but it all turned to dust when she came in closer and reflexively hugged Luke. Hard. There was a brief moment of surprise from her master, before he returned the embrace.

How do you tell the man who saved your life  _Thank you_  and  _I'm sorry_  at the same time?

"If you're going to blame someone, blame me. Not him," she murmured, "I'm the one who got drunk. I'm the one who needed to be taken care of. That's not Ben's fault."

They separated, and Rey saw Luke's eyes flash behind her to Ben as he said in a quiet, strained voice, "Yes, well. I think my nephew and I have some things to discuss." He looked back to Rey and pasted on what could have passed for a disapproving smile, "Look, I should get going, kid. We still on for dinner tomorrow night?"

Her brow furrowed at his tone, but she nodded. They said their goodbyes, and Luke didn't acknowledge Ben again, which was probably for the best considering how tense the room was. When he left, seeming reluctant to leave the two of them alone in the apartment -

(Rey was  _not_  stupid. It hadn't taken long to figure out what sort of impression Luke had gotten)

\- she gave Ben a reassuring smile, and practically fell back into his arms. She burrowed her face into his chest and tried to forget the sight of a livid Ben as he and Luke had it out in her new living room.  _Welcome home,_  her brain cynically chimed. It took a second to center herself before she smiled weakly and said, "Sorry about that. It's my fault that he got so mad."

After a moment's hesitation and something else indefinable, she felt him loosen up through the sweater as she felt him tenderly kiss her forehead and murmur, "I'm not sure that's the case, sweetheart."

"Well, whatever," she said flippantly. She pulled back just far enough to look up at him with tired eyes, saying, "Look, I'm going to put some lame, cheesy movie on, order a pizza, and cocoon myself on the couch with the fluffiest blanket I know of, which, if I remember correctly, is in your apartment. If you want to go home and stay there, I totally get it, but I'd like it if you went back to your apartment, put pajamas on, and came back with said fluffy blanket."

She paused, and added, "The only thing is, I can't promise you'll get it back if you bring it over here."

He chuckled, and then seemed to debate with himself before, asking, "You aren't doing anything with your friends?"

"Poe and Finn are going out together," she shrugged, "I'd rather not third wheel. And Rose is working."

"Oh. Huh," Ben paused, and counter-offered, "How about two pizzas?"

(This was exactly the sort of situation Luke would have disapproved of, her conscientious and morally upright part of her noted.)

It probably said something about Rey that she only pretended to mull it over to consider the implications. Even if she was grateful to Master Luke and his concern of her, it didn't stop part of her from being peeved at his intrusion into her life. She'd been taking care of herself for far longer than she'd been practicing Taekwondo. "Eh, alright. I  _guess_  that'd be okay."

He tightened his arms around her waist and gave a genuine laugh before saying, "You  _guess?_  And what was that about not getting my blanket back?" He shook his head, his grin seamlessly wiping away his earlier maudlin mood, "Y'know, you still haven't given me back the clothes I loaned you when you stayed over. And I  _know_  you still have some from the snowstorm."

"I'm sure I have no idea what you mean," Rey lied unashamedly. Truth be told she'd actually just procured them as permanent fixtures for sleepwear, but it wasn't like he needed to know that. After a moment of him staring down at her, her serious face slipped and she laughed, resting her forehead against his chest as her shoulders shook. "But if you  _did_  loan me any clothing, I doubt you'll ever get it back."

Ben hummed. "We'll see."

* * *

A week and several more boxes later (it was amazing how much she'd managed to pile up in a couple of years of living with Luke), she and Rose were finally moved in, and the full brunt of almost-winter hit them with gusto befitting a person of much nicer temperament than Rey could handle. Rose, as it came to light, turned out to be a morning person, that unholy subspecies of the human race dedicated to facing each day with a smile, and Rey bemoaned the wishful dream she'd once had of living with someone sane for once. The weather that week had been nothing but picturesque and perfect, and aside from a minor hiccup involving a lack of toiletries, living with Rose was turning out to be amazing. She'd even gotten the chance to say hi to Ben a few times in the mornings, whenever he'd head out to work (though she never really saw him get back).

In keeping with tradition, things couldn't be simple, and so, the Saturday after she moved in to the building, she received the shittiest piece of news that she objectively should have known was coming.

Rey let out a loud, exasperated sigh as she stepped outside her apartment door. She'd already pulled on her running shoes, and she stopped for a moment to pick out a good running song. After a moment she settled on a Blink-182 song that pretty much captured the sort of luck she felt she'd had lately.

She'd just gotten back from a poomse practice and she had a few hours before her late Saturday afternoon shift at the diner began, and between upcoming midterms and the disappointing news she'd just gotten from Luke, Rey found that she was having a less than awesome weekend.

"Oh hey," a voice greeted, "you headed out for a run?"

Rey glanced up at the familiar voice and actually managed to crack a smile. "Hey Phas," she said in what was hopefully a friendly voice. "Yeah, I've got a few hours before work. Figured I'd run."

The woman nodded. She wore a woolly and thick grey hooded sweater that looked like it had once started off as a promising and hopeful white. She wore loose running pants and a pair of sneaker more worn than Rey's own. Her short blonde hair seemed to be mussed up, and Rey's brain skipped right over the reason as for why that might be. She'd long gotten over her issues with Phasma's presence around Ben. One need only see the way Hux acted around her to really get why.

Phasma seemed to return the evaluating look Rey was giving her before shrugging.

"Mind company?"

"Uh," Rey hesitated - she hadn't been alone with Phasma since  _that night_  and she'd finally remembered saying some fairly embarrassing things. She took a deep breath and finally said, "Yeah, sure. That'd be great."

Thankfully Phasma seemed to be the type to listen to music while running, just like Rey. The women ran side by side, and since Rey didn't often go on runs, she let Phasma take the lead, and determine their path.

They'd been running for nearly half an hour when Rey waved in the direction of a convenience store, and they slowed, coming to a stop outside the entry.

"Sorry," Rey panted, "I'm just gonna buy some water."

"Me too. Perfect timing," Phasma said casually. She didn't even look winded. The bitch.

They went into the small store and purchased large bottles, making a point to ignore the leering cashier who seemed to be oblivious to the fact that they could clearly see him staring.

Once outside, Rey collapsed on a bench, and Phasma paused, then took the seat next to her.

"So," the woman started, "you wanna talk about it?"

"Talk about what?" Rey grumbled.

"Whatever's got you so worked up."

Rey sighed. "Nope."

"Just as well," Phasma chuckled, "I'm shit at girl talk. Never was one for talking about relationship stuff."

"Why do you assume it's relationship stuff that's bothering me?" Rey asked, her brow crinkling.

Phasma shrugged, "Just figured. Y'know, everything with Ben. I figured living in the same building might be frustrating or something, given that you're not...uh…" her nose crunched up, and she groaned, "oh, don't make me say it."

"Hooking up?" Rey said dryly.

Phasma cringed, "Pretty much. I was going to say  _together_. Like, relationship-wise. Dating? I guess?"

"It's nothing to do with Ben," Rey admitted. "Actually, living in the building has been really nice. Things aren't even that weird between us."

"Oh, well, that's good," Phasma smiled tightly, "but if we could limit the amount of  _Ben_  talk, that'd be great. I wasn't kidding when I said the guy's like a brother. A kid brother with a whole lot of issues."

Rey rolled her eyes. "Y'know, you're the one who brought him up."

"I'm sure that's not true," Phasma deadpanned. "Anyway, if it's not that, what's got you so stressed out? Might as well tell me."

Taking a deep breath, Rey leaned back against the back of the bench and said quietly, "Luke's holding me back."

"Ah."

"Yeah," Rey sighed. "I was supposed to test for my Black Belt at the next promotion, but he said he wants me to test for another Bodan stripe instead."

Phasma nodded and made an appreciatively sympathetic noise. Even after everything, Rey couldn't tell if she was mocking her or not. "Did he say why?"

Rey shrugged. "I probably should have expected it. We had this long talk during one of my Koryo practices and he ended up telling me I reminded him of Ben.  _Not_  in a good way. He said he's willing to wait until I'm thirty, if necessary. And he said I've got to show him I have what it takes."

"Hm."

She glanced over at Phasma, who was wearing an amused, but also thoughtful expression. "What?"

"Do you want my honest opinion?"

Rey thought for a moment, and nodded.

"Heh, you sure? If I recall correctly, I'm not exactly your favorite person for this sort of thing."

"You're not my favorite person for a lot of things, Phasma," Rey muttered, giving the older girl a baleful glare, "But you've never been anything other than honest with me. I kind of need that right now."

"Just remember, you're the one who asked for my opinion," Phasma said airily. "Alright, you want the God's honest truth, sugar cookie? You're pretty far from being ready for black belt."

Let it never be said that Phasma wasn't honest, Rey mused. Even if she probably deserved to get punted across a football field for her delivery.

"First, you really  _do_  suck at this girl talk thing." Rey found herself looking down at the ground in front of them, brow furrowed. A jogger passed them by, leaving a small storm of leaves in his trail. "Second, you've only seen me at a few promotions."

"Oh, the physical stuff isn't your problem," Phasma said plainly. She gently tapped the side of Rey's head with a knuckle. "Your issue's up here. Look, Rey, you want to know how I know you aren't ready?"

"Well, yeah," Rey said weakly.

"You don't trust Master Luke."

Rey frowned. "You're kidding, right? Of  _course_  I trust him."

Phasma let out a familiar and cynical bark of laughter that Rey realized she'd been hearing more and more from Ben recently. Since he'd started working at Snoke's really. Regardless, Phasma didn't seem to let Rey's assertion sway her opinion.

"No, you don't. Not with the tough stuff," Phasma explained. "Let me give you an example. Ben, idiot that he is, left you out in the middle of nowhere in the rain. You could have called Luke and he would have picked you up, no questions asked." She paused, and corrected, "Okay, so he probably would have asked a question or two, but if you'd said you were okay, unhurt, and didn't want to talk about it, he would have trusted you, and dropped it."

"You don't know that though," Rey pointed out. "You're just taking a guess."

"You're kidding right?" Phasma shook her head in wonder and Rey got the impression that it had something to do with her. "Rey, I've known about Luke Skywalker for a while now. Everyone in the local martial arts scene knows the guy."

"What?" Rey asked, more than slightly alarmed. "What, is he famous or something?"

"Something like that," Phasma answered dryly. "But regardless, one thing that  _everyone_  knows is not to mess with people he cares about. He'd do anything for them. Literally."

Rey's eyes narrowed at the woman. "What are you getting at?"

"I'm saying the guy would have let you keep your secrets, provided you weren't in danger. But, anyway, then, you get drunk at a party. Not really a big deal, if you ask me, but you needed to get home safe. You could have called Luke and he would have been annoyed at the situation, but he would have taken you home and sure, you would have gotten a bit of a lecture, but he would have understood. But instead, you called me. God only knows why," Phasma laughed. "Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be your designated driver if it keeps you safe, but Rey, you had better options."

"So…" Rey mulled it over, "you think that's why he's not letting me promote?"

Phasma sighed, "I couldn't begin to tell you why he isn't letting you promote. But here's what I  _can_  tell you - before I promote a student to Black Belt, they need to trust me implicitly, because it's the only way they'll make it through the exam. That exam...Rey, it's not easy. Sometimes the only way you make it through is by truly trusting that your Master knows you can.

"Honestly, I think, if you don't put all your trust and faith in Luke and Luke's decision to have you test, or  _not_  test, as the case may be...then you wouldn't pass anyway."

After a moment, Rey moaned. "I think I'm losing my mind."

"Why would you say that?" Phasma chuckled.

"Because" Rey replied dryly, "you're starting to make sense."

After a moment, Rey looked over at the woman who was staring off into the distance and asked softly, "Why are you so nice to me?"

Phasma snorted. "You're kinda like me, I guess. Massive bitch."

Rey rolled her eyes, but listened as Phasma continued to explain, "But it's more than that. I guess I'm glad you're around. Ben's a lot more tolerable now."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," she shrugged. "I remember, years ago, Hux and I ran into him in the hallway as he was getting home one afternoon," she chuckled, "the guy was practically beaming. I'm not sure I'd ever even seen the idiot smile. Obviously Hux gave him shit, and Ben mentioned he'd taken one of the students -  _you_ , I eventually learned - to a bookstore for her birthday. It's such a silly little thing, but...it was  _nice_." Phasma gave an uncharacteristic gentle smile, "Just, in general, he's a lot less of an asshole when you're around."

Rey had turned a little red (from running,  _obviously_  not because of what Phasma had said), and gave the woman a half smile, adding, "He's still kind of an ass, though."

The woman threw her head back in laughter, and cackled, "I  _knew_  I liked you!"

* * *

They didn't finish unpacking all in one week, of course. Between work, classes, commuting, and adjusting to the secret tricks and pitfalls of living on their own (they'd forgotten to grab shampoo, soap and food for the week, and only upon closer inspection of their vast collection of kitchenware did they realize that they didn't have any cups that weren't the typical red plastic cups that invariably appear in homes belonging to those under twenty). As it was, Rey had invited her friends over that weekend for the so-called Super Move-In of Awesomeness Part 2 (naming courtesy of Finn, who they all unanimously voted should never try to name anything again, much to his annoyance).

It was  _meant_  to be a productive day, full of serious working effort and ending with no more boxes littering the floor of their apartment, but in keeping with tradition, someone started goofing off. This time, it was Rey's overabundance of pillows that started it.

"Guys! Guys!" Rey tried shouting over the sudden din, "I thought we were going to be working?"

Finn, the  _traitor,_ tossed a pillow the size of a small cat into her face. "Work on  _this_  Kenobi!"

Before she could advance, the smaller girl was buried amidst a small avalanche of pillows, courtesy of Rose and Poe, who'd somehow taken shelter in the cramped space between her bed and the wall. Rey stood up, swore angrily, and was about to try shouting at them once more, before eating another face full of pillow.

(Seriously, why did she bring these with her? It wasn't like she needed this many.)

On the ground, Rey contemplated just grabbing one of the laying pillows and trying to get some sleep in the other room. They'd started early that day, and she'd already had to stop herself several times from contemplating the murder of her friends, much as she loved them. Anyone who just started freaking pillow fights in the middle of the day on a Sunday was clearly unhinged. She'd be doing the waking and sane world a favor if she did, she reasoned. They'd award her a medal.

Instead, deciding that retreat was the better part of valor (and the one most likely not to get her committed for homicide), Rey extricated herself from her own bedroom, surreptitiously closing the door behind her.

Right when she did, she heard someone knock on the door to her apartment.

( _Her apartment_. Wow.)

Checking herself to see she didn't have anything ridiculous like a stray feather clinging to her hair, Rey ambled her way through the stacks of boxes (how did she acquire so much? Up until two years ago everything she owned could have fit in a duffel bag), before opening the door.

"Hey Rey," Ben's warm voice rang through her ears, as she took the sight of him in. He had a bundle of paper in his hands. "Mr. Jensen called me since he couldn't get a hold of you. He says you haven't been checking your mailbox."

Rey frowned. "Isn't it illegal to grab someone else's mail? Also, since when do  _I_  get mail."

"It's literally piling up at the foot of your mailbox, kid," Ben rolled his eyes, "And welcome to adulthood. I don't even have a membership with half the companies I receive coupon offers from."

She grabbed the pile of papers and started perusing through them. "Well come in then," she motioned for him to come inside.

There came a loud shriek followed by the kind of laughter normally heard at amusement parks.

"That alright?" Ben asked, frowning, "Sounds like you've got company."

"It's just Rose and the others," Rey shrugged, continuing her analysis of the junk in her hands. Several credit offers, a coupon book to a store she'd never heard of, and so on. To think she'd once thought getting mail would be exciting. "Come on in, I was just about to order pizza."

Ben took a step through the doorway and closed the door behind him. "Pizza again?" he asked, his voice soft and with a jesting lilt, "Developing bad habits already?"

"Shut it, you." Rey glared, looking up from her officially deemed pile of waste in paper form, "At least I can cook without having to check with the Fire Marshall."

Something about what she'd said seemed to amuse him. "I can  _too_  cook," he corrected, "in case you need a reminder of the meal I made for you when you crashed on my couch."

Rey stopped, thought about it, and felt her mouth drop open. "Since when?"

"A while ago?" Ben shrugged unhelpfully, "My Master insisted that I learn how to cook for myself properly. Said it was unseemly that I didn't know how to take care of myself."

That caught her attention. It was rare that Ben would willingly bring up his Master and work. Seeing no better opportunity, Rey decided to venture forth by tentatively asking, "What's he like? What's his gym like? I've met him a couple of times but he's always been…." She tried to come up with the right word to fit her impression of the man in a way that wouldn't offend Ben. Slimy. Terrifying. Menacing.

"Intense?" Ben offered helpfully.

Master Luke was intense, Rey wanted to correct. Snoke just made her want to scrape her skin raw whenever she met him, which thankfully had just been the couple of times. Still, she didn't want to aggravate Ben's sensibilities when it came to his Taekwondo training. If what he was doing and who he was working under was fine with him, well, it wasn't exactly like Rey had any way to compare. "Yeah, sure."

"It's hard," Ben confessed, "Honestly, I've never been pushed as hard as when I started with the gym. My Master expects a lot out of me all the time. I've made some mistakes but overall it's been very...rewarding."

"Is that so?" Rey hummed to herself, biting her lip, before deciding that the question needed to be asked. "Then why are clenching your fist so tightly?"

"I-" Ben looked down. Some shadowy and ambiguous expression crossed his face then, vanishing before she could make any sense of it. "It's nothing. Just a bit wired from working today. My Master's asking me to take on more of the workload in teaching some of the guys, and it's kinda' got me stressed. It's...a big step. I don't want to disappoint him."

See, Rey could almost have believed it, if she weren't looking at Ben's face and if she couldn't detect the hint of underlying anticipation. And something else. Familiar and foreign at the same time.

"Do you need help?" Rey asked, leaning against a table piled with boxes she'd yet to unpack and divine the purpose of. "I don't know what's up between you two, but I'm sure Master Luke would be willing to give you some pointers."

She could have sworn she saw him bite down on his cheek, to stop some viscerally raw reaction that would have stunned her. As it was, all she saw was him close his eyes, and take a breath, before saying, in a low, rumbling voice. "I...don't think it's a good idea for me and Lu- Master Skywalker to see each other for a bit, Rey."

She crossed her arms, unimpressed and to hide the goosebumps his words were evoking along her skin. "Just like it wasn't a good idea to simply call and say hello after you left the Dojang?"

"That was different," Ben's voice replied smoothly, frost coloring each word, "That was a fundamental difference of opinion between he and I."

"Oh? And what's this about avoiding him then? A mature discussion?"

"It's not your business, is what it is," Ben snapped, suddenly and with astounding viciousness, before realizing what'd he'd said, "I'm sorry, I just-"

"Nevermind," Rey shook her head, trying and failing to suppress the fog that was starting to creep in from the edges of her brain. She loved Ben, she really did, but she was coming to realize that until he actually respected her as a person, and not just some kid, he wasn't going to take a lot of what she said seriously. "Just...help me with these, would you?"

Ben opened his mouth as if to apologize, but a warning look from Rey, tinted with the beginnings of frustration, sadness, and whatever else felt like erupting from her turmoiled heart, stopped him.

He walked over to the table, and started helping her unpack things. Two minutes in, he'd frozen after opening a box full of square sleeved records.

"These are..." Ben breathed out, a wide-eyed and -  _dare she say it_  - wounded look on his face.

_Shit._

_Shit. Shit. Shit._

Rey gently removed Ben's hands from the box lids, taking care to close the box back up. Whatever animosity between the two of them was gone, replaced by the tightly wound violin string of something delicate, fragile, and precious. They stepped away from the box and took a seat, together, on the couch.

After a few seconds, Rey decided to explain the subject. "Leia gave them to me," she said, "Last Christmas. She said your da-" she stopped and corrected herself on seeing the look on his face "- _Han_  would have wanted me to have them."

His hand was trembling. Twitches of emotion, numerous, dangerous, and vital to Ben's very being, flashed across his face. Tentatively, Rey reached out, and grasped one of his hands with both of hers, feeling the coarseness of his fingers, the calluses that had built up over the years. He had big hands, she'd once noted, and yet, for the first time, they felt vulnerable within her grasp.

"Were- were you close?" he asked in a voice she'd only heard once. That first night he'd taken her to the park. When he'd first called her  _starlight._

"He taught me how to drive a car," Rey offered, shy and a little nervous about explaining the exact nature of what she and Han had been. Fatherly was certainly something she'd considered, but it felt... _wrong_  to use such a word. Her own father and family had abandoned her years ago.

"Not that, I mean," Ben took a long and afflicting breath before continuing. "He liked you. He  _really_  liked you. I mean, I can't imagine my mo-" A pained and angry look, as if reprimanding himself crossed his face then, "- _Leia_ , that is, ever giving something like these away. They were important to him."

He swallowed, and seemed to think better. He was moving his shoulders, uncomfortably, as if something were itching at him.

Then, that same dark shadow from before passed across his eyes and something vile and empty and sickening took hold of his face. His mouth returned to normal, the smidgen of glassiness that had been in his eyes vanished, and something controlled, bottomless, and unfeeling filled the previously warm brown of his eyes.

With immovable strength, Ben slowly extracted his hand from her grip, gently lifting her fingers one by one until he was free of her touch.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking away again, "I need to get going. I've got some work to get to."

" _Ben?"_

"Thanks for the offer of pizza," he smiled humorlessly, and if Rey hadn't seen hell, that smile was it. "I should get going though."

She reached for him again, but he rose from the couch in one swift, avian motion. She was about to call for him again when the sound of a cell phone rang. It had a familiar ring to it - one that she would have placed anywhere even after hearing it only once.

Ben took out his second cell phone, and, with a nod and a wave goodbye -  _as if that was all he needed to leave her with after_ that  _display -_  accepted the call without checking and said, in a smooth cool voice, "Kylo Ren."

Before she could ask him what the  _hell_  that meant, he was out the door, two floors and a continent away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Torn apart, concerns with creativity, and mistletoe.
> 
> Taekwondo Notes:
> 
> Charyut - Attention (a stance, feet together, standing straight, arms at your sides)  
> Kyungnet - Bow  
> Kumgang - A Black Belt Poomse/Form usually learned after Koryo  
> Koryo - A Poomse/Form generally learned by a Bodan (Black Belt candidate), usually part of Black Belt testing  
> Koryo junbi - Starting stance for the form/poomse Koryo  
> Poomse: I've already explained this one, but there are like three plausible spellings for it, so if I've chosen one that offends anyone...well, pretend I spelled it differently.  
> Sijak - Begin/Start
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> Attack: We're allllllmost there. We're less than...oh gosh, I probably can't give an exact number, but we're pretty close to the end of this act and wow do we have some cool stuff planned. Within the next half-dozen chapters we'll be seeing some true darkness, some dealing with feelings, and a good chunk of angst. Don't worry, we also have some fluff to balance it out :D
> 
> So, Rey's being held back, at least for now. She'll be testing for Black Belt soon, though. Possibly earlier than she really should be, but...we'll see. It's different for everyone. It took me three and half years to get my Black Belt, which is a little faster than the average student, but I was (luckily) never held back.
> 
> thebuildingsnotonfire: So, we're ramping up to beginninng of the end of Act 2 here, and honestly, I'm really freaking excited guys. Rey's moved out, she's figuring stuff out on her own, but she's also stuck in the unfortunate conundrum of learning when to rely on the people in her life and when to figure stuff out on her own. As it is, she's got some things backwards.
> 
> With regards to black belt promotion schedules: in our experience, it takes usually a minimum of four years of constant, timely testing go from fresh dobok in the mail white belt to, smashing cement blocks and becoming a black belt. I myself took a little over four and a half years to do so. However, like Luke said, he can hold a student back as long as he feels necessary, provided it's for a good and justifiable reason.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	30. Bodan, Fourth Stripe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pot's starting to boil. It hasn't boiled over yet, but we're getting there. There are quite a few chapters left to this act. We will tell you when Act II is over, though I'm thinking you'll be able to tell pretty clearly. Finally, we just want to remind everyone of a few things:
> 
> 1\. No time jumps.
> 
> 2\. No long separations.
> 
> 3\. We won't be ending Act II on the "Rey closes the Millennium Falcon door on Ben" feeling we got in TLJ.
> 
> Links:
> 
>  
> 
> [ We have more fanart!!](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/176588581072/kindnessinpain2000-more-fan-art/)
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


Ben was digging deep into his thesaurus to cover the many variations of the word "Ow" when he stumbled upon Rey, sullenly trudging along the sidewalk.

He debated turning right around and heading in the opposite direction, intent on finding another way home after his impromptu walk outside. His collar was hurting something fierce, a side-effect from a crushing crane strike to the chest, though he'd been lucky enough to absorb most of the blow and bring the fight to the ground after that. His Master's on-hand physician had cleared him for the rest of the day with instructions to rest and relax, but that had been hours ago, and it wasn't like Ben was the best at following orders anyways. A little walk out in the near freezing evening was relaxing, wasn't it?

On the plus side, it meant he had a day to rest and recover from training. On the down side, it meant a day  _away_  from his training. He wasn't sure which was worse.

It'd been months since he'd last seen his Master. Most of their communication had been done through phone conversations and relayed instructions from the various members at the  _The First Order_ who were in the know. It did not mean, however, that his Master hadn't been kept abreadth of every detail of Ben's training.

In some ways it was refreshing having a Master who cared so much about his progress. Luke had only ever held him back, good intentions or not. The problem was, his Master's attention was like a flamethrower: when it was pointed at you, there was a very real possibility of catching fire.

The fact that Ben had finally been given instructions to head to Tatooine every week meant  _something_. It showed trust and faith in Ben's capabilities, even if the nightly commute was a bitch on his mileage. Taking part wasn't exactly ideal, but Snoke demanded it, and so Ben obeyed.

He paused to inhale as much of the freezing air around him as possible. The cold was invigorating, if not as comfortable as he'd initially thought when he left his apartment. It also helped dull the embers of panic that had sparked in him when he saw Rey.

Biting the inside of his cheek, he turned the corner again, and called out, with his arm raised high, "Rey!"

Rey paused in her prowl. She wore a loose and ratty-looking yellow hoodie, a habit she'd never shaken off entirely since her days with Plutt, and she was carrying a bulging duffel bag, looking disheveled and lost in thought as she plodded along the sidewalk.

Things between them had been a little tense since the night of his spontaneous visit a few weeks earlier, a fact which was only exacerbated from all the extra training and work his Master was having him do. He'd worried a little when he'd picked up the phone in front of her and answered by his other name, but she'd never pressed the issue in their texts and considering Master Skywalker hadn't come breaking down doors, Ben considered it good fortune nothing more had come of it.

When she turned to see him, her face went from pensive to delighted.

Rey was like sunshine bottled in human form, and he filled with warmth despite the chill in the air. Something tight and uncomfortable in his chest loosened just a little. It seemed she didn't hate him for everything.

( _Yet_  a nasty little voice said in his mind. It sounded terrifyingly like someone he should have recognized).

"Hey, what's up?" he said, speeding up his pace just a little to catch up to her. He eyed her duffel bag and the ponytail she'd switched to in place of her usual buns. "Coming back from practice?"

She bobbed her head in response and Ben saw that she was wearing earbuds, connected to the phone in her hand. The twilight evening had come and gone, and it was now steadily growing darker; the street lamps hadn't turned on yet, which left only her phone shining in the dying light. The fae light lent her face an otherworldly and exotic feel.

Rey still hadn't said anything. In the ensuing silence, he wondered if she'd forgotten the mess he'd been when he left her apartment last he saw.

He approached her, taking note of the breathy clouds of air that left her lips with each exhale, and stopped that thought before it could go any further. Instead, because his body seemed to have its own mind that actively fought against him at the worst of times, he gave her a hug, and he valiantly tried to ignore the instinct to pull her closer so he could shelter her from the cold.

When they parted she was noticeably smiling.

"Here," she said, profferring an earbud to him as she shuffled through something on her phone.

Raising an eyebrow, he stepped in closer and grabbed the little bud. "Okay?"

"Put it in," Rey spared him a glance to show him her rolling her eyes before switching back to her phone.

Ben did so, hunching down a little so as to not tug on the earbud wire too much. He should have thought of another solution, because suddenly she was  _right there, so close_  and his head was fogging up with thoughts he'd never have considered a year ago. It wasn't like he hadn't known she was attractive, but before the mess that had happened back in April, he'd always thought of her as the cute, innocent type who'd go for some sweet boy her own age - not as the confident, self-possessed yet fiery kind of girl he'd realized she'd become.

Keeping his eyes to himself (the cold brought out a healthy flush on Rey's cheeks that was just  _unfair)_ , Ben asked in as idle a voice he could manage without betraying his thoughts, "You gonna' tell me what's up, sweetheart? Not that I mind leaning over you in the middle of the street like this. I definitely didn't have any better plans for tonight. You?"

That sounded like flirting. _D_ _ammit._ Why was he flirting with her again?

Fortunately, either he sucked at it, or Rey just didn't notice (he'd put money on both, truthfully). Instead her response was to snort and say, "Your Snark-Fu is weak."

Ben blinked, not entirely sure how to respond to that. Luckily he didn't have to, because soon Rey's dancing fingers finally stopped on a specific song. He caught a glimpse of the name before the album title took up the screen, and a familiar tune came through the earbud.

"The Offspring?" he asked, curious, "I thought you were more of a classic rock person."

She started walking, and, unintentionally, started tugging on the earbud. Not wanting to let go, even if bending down like this was  _killing_  his back and collar, he followed, taking mismatched steps to keep with her lackadaisical pace. Finally after a minute and a half of it, she stopped the song, and asked, in a kind of airy voice, "What'd you think?"

"It's a good song," he said, and shrugged. It felt weird and uncomfortable just bending down to speak with her like this, and it truly didn't help that he was only inches away from…

_Stop._

Oddly enough, he noticed that despite his discomfort, his tattoo had stopped itching. He'd gotten so used to the constant reminder of the thing's presence between his shoulders that its absence was somehow more noticeable than the steady soldering pin pricks of the mark on his skin.

Rey muttered something unintelligible and distracted before looking up at him with an evaluating stare.

"Listen to this one then," she said, and brought up a new one faster than he could react. Soon his ear was filled with the steady mounting staccato riff of  _Immigrant Song_.

As nice as it was having her so close, after a few more seconds of listening to one of Led Zeppelin's best, his collar was threatening outright mutiny if he didn't fix his posture. He popped the earbud out and suppressed the wince that came from standing up straight. His instinct was to roll his neck and test out his sore muscles, but that was one thing the physician had been clear on. No strenuous movement for at least a few weeks, and after just a few minutes of hunching down, he was inclined to agree.

Seeing Rey's inquisitive stare, he offered a tired response of, "That's a good one too,"

She kept staring at him suspiciously. "And?"

"And what?" Ben put his hands in his pocket. "You have good taste in music."

"Well, everyone does compared to you," she grinned up at him. "I'm talking about for my poomse."

It was a testament to Ben's self-control that he didn't miss a step, even if his mind felt like he'd just wandered into a conversation ten minutes in the future. "What? What're you talking about?"

"My creative poomse?" She looked up at him through those fluttery eyelashes of hers ( _wow_ , he'd never noticed a girl's eyelashes flutter before,  _what was wrong with him?)_ , "You know? That thing I texted you about a few weeks ago? Did you change numbers or something?"

Ben looked aside. He'd been so swamped with work he'd honestly forgotten about it, not to mention the mental blur that covered the events immediately following the discovery of Han's old records. It was entirely possible that he'd forgotten a question she'd asked him weeks ago, especially if it was on his decreasingly used phone.

"Sorry about that," he mumbled, ducking his head under a particularly low tree branch as they rounded the corner on a street. The building they lived in was a little further out from the rest of the city, but it had the side benefit of actually having some green in the area. "Been busy."

"I've noticed," Rey said, not pointedly exactly but definitely on the more forceful side, "I thought I'd be seeing more of you when I moved in to the building, not less. Where've you been?"

His shoulder twinged painfully when he tried to shrug, so instead he just put his hands in his coat pockets and shook his head. "Things've been pretty crazy with work still. I feel like I'm always playing catch up with the guys there, so I'm usually sticking around longer than usual."

"Well, why not ask Phasma for help? She's been teaching there too, right?"

_Because Phasma can't know what I'm doing, Rey._

His Master had been very clear about that. People were far more likely to believe the pretty blonde if she didn't have a clue what she was really selling them.

Ben wanted to say that, but instead, all that came out was, "Phasma's job is different from mine."

Hazel eyes that shone in the now ephemeral street lights seemed to narrow at his response. "How so?"

He grunted non-committedly.

"Ben?"

"I can't help you," he said, changing the subject. "With your poomse I mean." Who knows how long it'd been since he'd done one anyways. His Master didn't much care for rehearsed fighting. "I'm guessing this is for your Black Belt promotion?"

"I- yeah." Her voice went softened as she answered.

She shivered in the dawning night. Winter in Coruscant had a bad habit of catching people off-guard, and Rey was only wearing a hoodie and what looked to be a regular top underneath. She'd probably thought she was fine after the training session with Master Skywalker, and that she was close enough to run home before the cold really started settling in afterwards.

Sighing softly, and silently swearing to himself it was entirely because it was  _his_  fault she was delayed in getting back, Ben unbuttoned the jacket he'd worn since leaving for his walk earlier.

"C'mere," he grumbled, and hoped that the cold air would be enough to pass off the tints of pink he could feel creeping up his neck, "You're gonna' freeze to death."

Whether it was the cold or her own exhaustion or even, G _od forbid,_  her lingering attraction to him, Rey sidled up to his side, under his extended coat without a peep. It was a little awkward, having to keep his arm and coat out and around her, but the contented noise she seemed to unconsciously let out, something between a purr and hum, shut up any protestations his body voiced.

He absolutely did  _not_  store that noise away for future reference.

"Thanks," she said after a while, and Ben sensed that she was keeping mum on something she desperately wanted to say, "So...why can't you help me with the poomse?"

It was like having a living radiator of positive energy in his arms. He never wanted to let her go. Ben's brain was clinically writing down how nice it felt to put his arm around her like this, holding her close from the increasingly freezing winds. They'd been having a northern front come in recently, and of course that just meant more of the  _screw-you_  kind of winter weather, as opposed to the comfortable, lazy kind. But Rey made it all bearable.

Realizing he was taking a while to reply, Ben cleared his throat and tried to come up with an answer that wouldn't give away his recent inexperience with poomse. There was really only one poomse he still remembered and practised, and that was in the comfort of in his own home, where no one could see him.

"It's very...personal," Ben explained, after a minutes thoughts on why and the implication of her asking. "It's not something you ask just anyone."

"But," Rey turned to look up at him, and of course, she took that moment to bite her lip, because why the _hell_  would she not unintentionally drive him insane (it was highly possible he'd considered biting that lip himself), "you  _aren't_  just anyone. You're Ben. My best friend. We talk to each other about everything."

( _Oh what a nasty surprise she's in for,_ said that taunting voice in his conscience once more).

"Rey, trust me," Ben said, even as part of him yelled at her not to, "It's not something you should be asking anyone for help with. The songs you picked...they're great. But you can't let my opinions influence you. Just, don't let the song dictate what it's going to be like. Just because it's a poomse doesn't mean it has to be action-packed."

"Master Luke said the same thing."

Salt seemed to form on his taste buds at the name. His old Master had been calling the gym increasingly as of late, constantly wanting to talk to Ben. It was getting to be impossible to get the other guys stop mocking him for using a pseudonym, but it wasn't like  _they_  had much reason to forget their names. His current Master's solution was to challenge him to  _make_  them stop.

"I have my problems with him, but he knows what he's doing," Ben bit out eventually. He hoped she didn't notice the tenseness in his jaw or the lie in his chest when he did so. His current Master had made his opinions on Skywalker's methods very clear: weak-willed and watered-down.

"I'm just...I'm having a lot of trouble picking the right song, you know?"

Ben didn't stop himself from smiling, and he tightened his hold around her. In spite of everything, sometimes he forgot she was still a bit new to the concept of attaining Black Belt status.

"Rey, sweetheart, the creative poomse...it's about  _you,_ not the song."

Her face scrunched up in an adorable frown, and part of him wanted to congratulate the world for torturing him so successfully.

They made it to the front of their building, but neither of them made to go inside. Rey just huddled in closer to his front, and Ben, desperate fool that he was, accepted it.

 _Let me have this,_  he thought, eyes trailing to the heavens,  _let me have this moment._

A single flake of snow, a tiny miniscule thing, caught his eye. It trailed along down, following the ebb and flow of the winds, slowly, steadily, floating down.

The first snowflake of winter landed right on Rey's nose.

Ben wanted nothing more than to kiss it off.

Nearly cross-eyed from looking at it, she blew the snowflake off before he got the chance, then shivered, and pressed herself against him. Chuckling, Ben held her close and settled for kissing the top of her head before they headed inside.

* * *

Things slipped more and more into  _normal_  as the winter got colder. Despite the questions that lingered in the back of Rey's mind ( _What was the deal with this_ Kylo Ren _?)_ , she and Ben had fallen back into a familiar, heartwarming friendship that she loved. Rose, wonderful, confusing, supporting friend that she was, had only shaken her head and offered Rey hot chocolate when she saw the two of them enter the building after the first snow of winter started a few weeks earlier.

Classes had wrapped up for the semester, not quite with a  _bang_ , but with a respectable GPA and an understanding that Rey was liable to commit homicide if she had to deal with the kind of politicking she'd seen from academia. Which meant, coupled with her boredom of messing around on a computer for too long as office jobs usually required, teaching was also off the list. Not that there was anything wrong with that...it just  _wasn't her_.

Living with Rose was comfortable, though neither of the girls had proven to be very good at cooking, which was why they both joined Luke for a weekly dinner that wasn't some variant on pizza and takeout. Rey teased that it was just because she didn't want him to be lonely, but the truth was, even though she'd only lived there a few years, his place above the Dojang was the closest she'd ever gotten to having a home, and a family.

It was nearly Christmas and, her friends being who they were, all seemed to have come to the unanimous conclusion that there was going to be a party at Rey and Rose's new place,  _without_  actually consulting them. Why? Because  _reasons,_  apparently.

The two of them had been quite miffed when they found out, more due to the surprise factor than anything else. Rose was incredibly eager to play hostess, and Rey just wanted to hang out with her friends and celebrate the holidays, so eventually they agreed.

A burst of cheer and thankfulness bloomed in her chest as she looked around at the new apartment that was slowly becoming  _home_. Finn and Poe had arrived early, and now they were helping Rose string lights around a moderately-sized fake tree Rose's sister had gifted them while Phasma stood back and barked orders like some candy-cane-decorated drill sergeant. Rey smiled contentedly, watching Finn and Poe nudge each other playfully, communicating silently with small smiles and chuckles that everyone could see plainly.

Phasma threw her head back in laughter at something they'd said, and Rey took a deep, happy breath, not for the first time thanking her lucky stars that she'd had the nerve to walk up to Luke that day in ninth grade. Joining the Dojang had given her a family. Maybe not a biological one, but it had certainly given her one that she knew wouldn't abandon her. And really, that's all that mattered.

Hux and Ben let themselves in through the door Rey had propped open, and she walked over to say  _Hi_  and do her best impression of a hostess. Of course, Ben ruined her plans to politely take their coats and immediately wrapped her in a hug that nearly lifted her clear off the ground.

"Ben!" she giggled. "C'mon, I was going to take your coats."

"Oh, right." He smiled and let her go, seeming to ignore Hux's eye-roll, and said, "It's actually starting to snow pretty hard. We picked up some hot cocoa and sugar cookies, but are you sure you didn't want us to pick up take-out?"

"We're cooking!" Rose shouted from her spot under the tree. Apparently Paige had also given them a tree-skirt, and the girl was trying to arrange it properly.

Hux groaned. "Tell me you didn't get your cooking skills from Skywalker."

"Worse," Ben deadpanned, side-eyeing his friend, "I actually think Luke is a better cook than she is."

After a single futilely threatening moment of Rey's glaring, Hux let out an overly dramatic sigh and shook his head in amusement, moving past them to greet Phasma.

"Are you really cooking?" Ben asked again with a tone of mild concern. She tried not to be offended.

She crossed her arms in mock annoyance and said dryly, "Would it make you feel any better if I let you help?"

_Say yes, you stupid, gorgeous boy. Say yes._

The butterflies in her stomach started making hurricanes as he seemed to consider it, and then nodded.

"At least if I help I know you won't burn the building down."

Rey huffed. "You just  _had_  to ruin it." She tried to pull off a disapproving expression, but she was in far too good a mood, and ended up laughing as she led him to the kitchen.

* * *

Ben listened from the kitchen as the two worlds that were his friends and Rey's continued to collide, and he couldn't help but smile to himself. His life had never been what one would call perfect, and Christmas had always been a not-so-subtle reminder that his parents had foisted him off on Master Skywalker, but this? This was... _nice._

Even nicer, was the fact that he'd ended up being enlisted in cooking duties with Rey, and while she'd originally apologized, he had to hold his tongue so he didn't admit that she was the only person he was there to see.

He took a deep breath as he glanced over and did a double-take. He hadn't noticed earlier because she'd had on a gaudy red and green reindeer sweater, but she'd taken it off when they'd moved into the kitchen. She... _she was wearing one of his shirts._

Sure, they'd said it would be a very casual friend-party, mostly just food and Christmas-themed movies, but he hadn't exactly been prepared to see her strolling around, wearing one of his shirts as though it belonged to her. It was just a plain black band t-shirt he'd had in college, but it looked infinitely better on her than it ever had on him. The yoga pants completed the look perfectly.

_She's a friend. Just a friend._

Another voice in his head took the opportunity to remind him that he'd actually considered mistletoe as an excuse to kiss his  _friend_ , but... _oh_ , he was close enough to be pretty sure she was wearing cherry chapstick. There was no chance in hell that she knew his weakness for that.

Though, lately, Ben had begun to wonder if his weakness had just become  _Rey._

 _She's a very_ cute  _friend,_  his brain (read: libido) corrected.

Ben groaned.

The only thing he'd truly accepted about their friendship in the previous six months was that he was utterly screwed. Confused, too.  _What a great combination_.

"-at 450 degrees for three hours, and...wait, does that sound right to you?"

Ben blinked, and tore his eyes from her lips. "Sorry, what?"

A slight smirk played on her lips as she repeated her question. "Does that sound right to you?"

She'd caught him staring.  _Dammit_.

Ben cleared his throat, resolving to blame the sprouting blush on the unusually warm kitchen lights and looked down at the instructions she held. It was the recipe for his mother's homemade mac and cheese...which  _definitely_  didn't take three hours at a high temperature to cook. "Uh, when did you put it in the oven?"

"I forgot to set the timer," Rey shrugged, "but it's probably almost done."

He winced, and said, "I'm a little surprised we haven't smelled burning yet." He opened the oven quickly, and immediately noticed something was off. Literally.

It was karmic justice at its finest for all the crap she'd given him about cooking, but he didn't want to embarrass her.  _Too much._  At least, that was until he remembered how she'd called him hopeless when it came to cooking. For the first time in a while, he burst out in a full belly laugh while Rey stood there, looking more and more confused (and, likely, annoyed) by the second.

"What?" she asked plainly, hands on her hips. The sight made another round of laughter bust from his chest wish gusto.

"Sorry," he managed to choke out, "It's just- you...you didn't turn the oven on."

Rey's jaw dropped. "You're  _kidding_."

Judging from the horror hin her voice, she already knew he was telling the truth.

"I'm not," he snorted. "I think it's time to consider ordering take-out."

Rey tried to bury her face in her hands. A low, sickly moan seemed to escape from between her fingers.

"You're never going to let me live this down, are you?" she groaned.

Ben hummed. "Definitely not. Consider it payback for all the snark I got the first time I tried to cook for you. And y'know, I can teach you how to cook, if you want." He grinned again and decided to channel his uncle just a little bit, "Lesson One: How to turn the oven on."

She smacked his arm, "You. Shut up."

He chuckled at her. With a self-satisfied smirk and a huff he leaned against the wall, winked, and said, "Anything for you, sweetheart."

Ben didn't miss her the fact that she blushed before grabbing the take-out menu.

* * *

One hour and a massive take-out delivery later, the seven of them crowded around the table, filling plates and casually elbowing each other while fighting for egg-rolls with their chopsticks. Once they'd filled their plates, everyone found a spot, either on the now-crowded couch, or on the pile of pillows and blankets Rey and Rose had tossed on the living room floor. She'd thought that, in the move, she'd somehow have reduced the amount of unnecessary pillows she had, but somehow she was sure she'd gotten more.

"So," Hux spoke up, snatching a chicken wing from Phasma's plate, "what movie are we starting with?"

"Die Hard."

"Die Hard!"

Poe and Finn looked at each other in surprise, and high-fived.

Finn chuckled, and added, "It really  _is_ the best Christmas movie."

"As awesome as John McClane is, I still don't think it qualifies as a Christmas movie," Phasma argued. "I was thinking more like... _It's a Wonderful Life."_

Rose groaned, "Can we not? I've seen it a million times."

"Okay, okay, I guess it is a little overdone," Phasma conceded. "Well, what's your opinion Rey? What sort of Christmas movies did you watch as a kid? We're going for the nostalgia vibe, right?"

Hux nodded to her, and Phasma glanced over when Rey didn't answer.

She'd sat on the floor with her back against the couch, in a spot directly next to Ben, and his arm pulled tightly around her shoulders as she answered, "Uh...I didn't really have any sort of Christmas-celebration before I met Luke and Ben."

"Oh." Phasma bit her lip awkwardly, which really told Rey that she'd made things awkward, because Phasma was unapologetic about  _everything_. Finally, after a moment of everyone glancing down at their plates, Phasma piped up and said, "Alright, so then obviously we need to start off with  _the_ classic."

Rose grinned. " _A Christmas Story?"_

"Yep!"

Rey shrugged in agreement, and settled in closer to Ben.

"You okay, sweetheart?" Ben murmured as Rose got up to start the movie.

She nodded, and smiled at him. "Don't worry. I'm  _much_  better than okay."

"Good," he chuckled. He turned for a second to reach up and grab a blanket, and she felt butterflies again as he pulled it around them, keeping his arm wrapped tightly around her. "I meant to say," he added, "congratulations on the promotion - I'm sorry I wasn't there. Couldn't get the day off."

Promotion had only been a few days earlier. It had sucked, as Rey had come to expect of senior promotions, and part of that was because she'd expected to be a Black Belt by now.

"That's okay." Rey's smile got a little tighter, but she relaxed against him. It wasn't  _really_ okay, but it didn't feel like the right time to say that, so she didn't. Instead, she rested her head against his chest, ignored the movie, and listened to his heart beat.

There was something so comforting about being in his arms, and not for the first time, she was reminded that  _home_  wasn't always a structure. As far as she was concerned,  _Ben_  was home, and as she noticed him smile down at her, and as she felt him carefully start to pull his fingers through her hair and tenderly kiss the top of her head, she let herself hope that maybe someday, he'd feel the same way about her.

* * *

Rey stared at the people milling about in the rec center, trying and failing to stop her rising blood pressure. She eyed the sectioned mat area that would host her debut into the world of tournament sparring.

An eight by eight meter square of red jigsaw mats occupied the space in front of her. It was very large, too much so in her opinion. Surely she wouldn't need the whole space, would she?

Master Luke had taken the senior students on a very suddenly announced trip. He'd been trying to organize it on his own for everyone over the age of thirteen, as his younger classes were usually children and their parents during the day. Unfortunately, due to the logistics of organizing everyone, only those red belt and above were permitted to come on the trip. That left them numbered at a little over a dozen or so, which was a much more manageable group.

They weren't far from Coruscant, only about an hour's drive away, and the place the tournament was being held at was a tired old rec center where more money had gone into the parking lot signs than the building itself.

> " _You run, run, run away,_
> 
> _It's your heart that you betray."_

And in just a few minutes Rey was going to have her first sparring experience in a tournament setting, and she was doing her best to focus on the lyrics that pumped out of her earbuds.

> " _Feeding on your hungry eyes,_
> 
> _I bet you're not so civilized."_

There must have been some temporary insanity going around. That was the only explanation. Clearly Luke had contracted some highly temporary disease because there was no way in his sane mind he would have allowed Rey compete against complete strangers. And it must have been infectious too, because right now Rey was cursing her past self's poor decisions and inconsiderate attitude to her present self, because there was no way she would freely choose this on her best day.

> " _...Love is the kill,_
> 
> _Your heart's still wild."_

To make matters worse, Luke was so clearly overwhelmed and spread thin he was running around acting as sparring coach for all her Dojang-mates, who, aside from the four or so Black Belts that'd accompanied them, were all lower ranked than her and utterly  _terrified_. They'd initially planned on having Poe serve as Rey's sparring coach for her match, but apparently his own match was slated to happen at around the same time, and it wasn't like she could take him away from that.

> " _Shootin' at the walls of heartache,_
> 
> _Bang! Bang!_
> 
> _I am the warrior."_

Poe was fine without a coach. He'd been sparring for longer than she'd been practising Taekwondo and he knew his way around the ring better than anyone Rey'd seen.

It was just that facing a complete stranger who very likely would not have any reservations about going all out against her, without anyone in her corner, was liable to make her physically sick.

> " _Oh, who's the hunter, who's the game?_
> 
> _I feel the beat call your name-"_

"I suggest you take those things out of your ears,  _Miss Kenobi,"_  a slick voice said from behind her. "Concentrate on the fight ahead of you."

It was like someone had pressed ice to the nape of her neck. With a controlled shudder, Rey pulled her earbuds out and stopped her stretching. Grandmaster Alistair Snoke stood over her, not necessarily looming, but presenting a certain aesthetic that reminded Rey of large birds of prey as they were about to strike.

She didn't scramble to her feet and bow because that would have implied fear, and fear was one thing her instincts were yelling at her not to show in front of this man. Still, she stood up in a hurry and bowed as low as she dared, an exercise which brought to mind an old history class lesson on guillotines.

"Master Snoke," she said demurely, before rising from her bow. Her previous anxiety of being dragged into a spar she'd volunteered for now seemed muted and childish.

Snoke wore a suit, just like every other time she'd seen him. This one was a rich and ominous grey, the color of thunderclouds on the horizon, with an ivory white undershirt that was immaculately pressed. His shoes seemed to shine in the rec center's light, and Rey didn't doubt for a moment that they probably cost more than some of the cars that were parked outside.

After a second's glance of looking her up and down, assessing her, Snoke inclined his head in the smallest microcosm of motion that could only charitably be called a nod. "Your manners have gotten better, at least."

Rey bristled at his tone, but didn't say anything.

Apparently he took that as invitation to keep speaking to her. "The organizers are short on staff, and I was asked to help fill in for some  _much needed_  coaching in the various spars."

Dread and sludge filled her pit. She wanted to ask why he was mentioning that, but she got the feeling Master Snoke didn't appreciate stupid questions. Or questions at all.

Instead, she said, by way of explanation for her earlier actions, "I was getting ready. By listening to music."

"Music won't help you in a fight, Miss Kenobi," Snoke corrected. "I've seen too many people lose themselves to some imaginary rhythm and miss a critical step in a fight to advise listening to such...trivialities."

"But sir-"

"Do you want my help, or would you rather fumble in your first tournament?" Snoke's tone was clipped and matter-of-fact and made Rey subconsciously straighten her posture. "I am doing this as a favor to the organizers of the tournament, and I don't see much point in helping someone unreceptive to my teachings."

He wasn't much taller than Rey. She would even have estimated him to be a little shorter than Luke, but Snoke seemed to exude a pressure on her and the area around him that was just impossible to ignore. His force of personality was a lead weight on a thin rubber sheet of perception, and when he spoke, people  _listened._

Master Luke had gotten like this once or twice, mostly in private moments during their one-on-one training sessions, but never had Rey's insides gibbered at the thought of talking back.

She was just about to declare that she didn't need his help, that his work would be better served elsewhere with someone a little more suicidal and a lot more stupid, but stopped when she saw the empty glaciers that were his eyes. Something in them gave her pause; not a cautious kind of pause, no, because that would have been normal. It was an atavistic response buried deep in her instincts that insisted there was a very large animal around, better prepared and waiting, and all it needed was a reason to give chase.

This was Ben's  _Master?_

...what in the ever-loving _hell_  had Ben gotten himself into?

"Match 4F to ring 5! Match 4F to ring 5!" a voice on a mic interrupted.

Biology caught up to her and finally she breathed. The suddenly freezing air of the gym seemed to prick at her eyes, but she resolutely did  _not_  wipe them. She imagined that wouldn't endear her to the seventh dan beside her.

"Very well then," Snoke nodded, tone businesslike and devoid of feeling, "I suppose I'm helping you. Tell me, girl, what can you do?"

She shot him a questioning look. "Uh, kick?"

He waved his hand impatiently. "Obviously. Unless Master Skywalker's standards have really fallen so low I can at least assume you know how to not get hit?"

"Um. Yes?"

His nostrils flared impatiently. "Are you asking me or telling me?"

Biting the inside of her cheek, she counted to five before saying, "Telling."

"Good, focus on that for the first half. Go for some shots if you can, while I figure out a way to make you win."

The sound that escaped him could maybe have been misconstrued as happy. Rey knew better. Predators didn't sound happy. They sounded amused. More like,  _Look at the little lonesome deer wandering alone out to the watering hole. Doesn't she look adorable?_

That was hysteria, her mind couldn't help but clinically note. After all, she was alone - away from her Dojangmates - with Luke off helping some hapless red belt with Taeguk Pal Jang, in some random rundown building, about to face a scary martial artist who'd probably been practising for years, and with someone even scarier right behind her, coaching her.

It wasn't full blown histrionics yet, but it had all the makings of a mess waiting to happen.

Fortunately, they didn't have to wait for long. Within a few minutes Rey and her opponent met in the middle of the ring she'd been admiring until recently. At that moment, if she had to choose between going back to her corner and getting her face kicked in, Rey was definitely leaning towards the latter.

Her opponent was about level with Rey in terms of height and rank, with Rey having maybe a half an inch advantage. But whereas Rey seemed to clamber around in her hogu, her opponent moved and walked as easily in hers as if it were a natural extension of her body. She had dark black eyes than didn't seem to focus on Rey, always skidding over her face or body, seeming to keep track of everything else around them.

Before she could observe more, they were bowing - first to the referee, then each other, and then they assumed stolid fighting stances, each practically vibrating in place as the countdown reached zero.

"Shijah!" The ref bellowed, but he needn't have, because the two of them were flying at each other as soon as the first syllable left his mouth.

They only needed to exchange a few kicks for Rey to realize something. Whatever physical height difference there was between them, it clearly didn't hint at the huge discrepancy in strength. Rey blocked an incoming high-section roundhouse with her wrist, a stupid move if there ever was one, and she nearly got her own fist slammed into her face for the trouble.

With a hiss she leapt back and to the side, trying to find or make an opening in her opponents guard. Her hand rang with an uncomfortable shock that quickly spread to the rest of her arm, and it was worse the any of the board breaks she'd ever done. Boards didn't hit  _back_.

Her opponent turned in place to meet her and tried to slam a front-snap kick that seemed to stretch from the opposite end of the ring. It was only reflex that had Rey turning her body to the side and letting the kick pass by, taking the opportunity to switch into a leading side-kick that landed firmly in her opposites ribs, but sadly did not score her a point according to the corner judges.

They exchanged kicks for what felt like forever, and right when Rey thought she was going to pass out from hyperventilation or a kick to the head (of which she'd avoided several so far), the referee called, "Kuman!"

With a deep and mad sigh of relief, Rey made her way to the center. They bowed to each other and were then sent to their respective corners for the traditional one minute rest.

As soon as she remembered who was waiting her there, Rey wanted to ask if she could just keep going.  _No rest necessary._

Walking like she'd been sentenced to the gallows, Rey sat down on the chair provided for coaches, and grabbed the first bottle handed to her. She took mad gulps, and, after a bit of choking after swallowing too much too fast, she let it go and returned to whoever had handed it to her.

"Not bad, Rey," Ben's voice cut through the haze.

Her mouth still felt funny after the mad dash, but that didn't stop her from sputtering out and looking at the person who'd handed her the water bottle, "B-Ben? You're here?! And... _Phasma?"_

It made sense, she supposed. Snoke was here too. It only made sense for a Master's students to follow him to a tournament, but that didn't mean it wasn't surprising. Ben hadn't mentioned the tournament last she saw him, and Phasma didn't usually make her plans a secret, so seeing her there as well was doubly surprising.

"What's up, sunshine?" the woman asked, offering a jaunty wave that didn't match the tight look on her face. "Gettin' your ass kicked, aren't you?"

"Fuck off, Phas," Rey muttered without thinking.

"Kindly keep such language to yourself, Miss Kenobi," Snoke interjected. He'd been hovering over the trio like some great big vulture. "I understand you are acquaintances outside of formal settings, but there is a time and a place for such words and now is not it. You as well, Master Phasma. I know I've trained you better than this."

"My apologies Master Snoke," Phasma answered in kind, instantly chastened. Before Rey even had time to process the absurdity of Phasma apologizing, Snoke was once again speaking.

"Your opponent is quick to react to every stimulus," he said, "she is faster than you, and, as evidence by those hits she planted against your gawking face, she has better reach than you as well. You are at a natural disadvantage given your respective weights. Your strikes are stronger, but I imagine that is only due to the short amount of time she's been training. She is a novice, but so are you."

Maybe it was the oxygen deprivation but his words, which would have tempered her spirit any other time, just incensed her instead.

"So...what?" Rey asked, licking her lips as she tried not to look him in the eye. "What do I do?"

"Her balance is terrible," Snoke said, either not noticing or not caring about her tone, "I suspect it's a result of her Master's training. They seem to favor long single strikes versus chaining anything together. A fool's mistake. You're going to take advantage of that."

Rey stopped herself from spitting out something unflattering. There were only ten seconds left on the clock.

"How!?" she asked desperately. Regardless of who was coaching her, she wanted to win. Or, at least, she wanted to win badly enough to put up a good fight.

Snoke crossed his arms and seemed to glare down at her. "When she goes to strike, you block."

"What? That's it?!"

"Fighters ready!" the referee called.

Rey stood from her metal chair and searched the man's face. It was cold and impassive.

She knew she couldn't seek help from Ben or Phasma. Not only would ignoring Snoke in favor of one of his students be hugely inappropriate, but they were already out of time. Not much help could be found, even from a Grandmaster, in two second or less.

She turned to head back to the center, and-

"Two people enter, one winner leaves, Miss Kenobi," Snoke said, his voice hard and solemn. "That is always the case. You see a strike? Don't just block it.  _Destroy it."_

Before she could ask what he meant, the referee was already waving her and her opponent into place. She didn't have to turn around to know that Snoke had walked off, apparently deeming his job finished.

They bowed, and as they took up their stances once more, Rey replayed the words in her mind.

_Don't just block it, Miss Kenobi. Destroy it._

"Shijah!"

Her opponent's foot came up for a testing strike. She was grinning. The score was 3-6 in favor of her, and she probably thought she had it in the bag. The bitch.

 _Well screw that_.

Rey's low block met the opposing girl's slow and easy going instep with vindictive force.

Her opponent winced, and faltered.

Rey's heart wavered for just a moment before suddenly the  _other_  foot came up in a machine gun set of kicks that would normally have knocked her on her back. Rey winced and, taking a trick out of Poe's handbook, decided to stop being so stationary. She practically slammed her elbow into the other girl's shin, an action which sent another mutinous jolt of pain up her arm.

Judging by the audible grimace and hiss from her opponent, it seemed to have worked.

The fight proceeded much like that. Every time a strike looked like it was going to land, Rey made sure to punish her opponent for daring to to do. With severe punity.

In the end, Rey scraped a hard won 8-7 victory in her favor, and her entire body felt like it had just gone through a series of Promotions back to back to back.

They bowed, and the other girl congratulated her on her blocks, an act that more or less threw Rey for a loop and finally convinced her there was something crazy going around, because clearly no one sane thanked another person for beating the crap out of their limbs. Not to say that Rey got off scot-free. Newton's Third Law being what it was, Rey's arms and legs hurt viciously - probably even more than the other girl's - and it was with a tired and despondent sigh that she realized she still had a few more rounds to go.

"Congrats, cupcake," Phasma said, walking up to her, and punching her lightly in the shoulder. "Glad to see I wasn't wrong about you."

"What?" Rey raised an eyebrow at her, and then turned for Phasma to help take the hogu off, "That I can kick ass?"

"No, that you're a glutton for punishment. I'm pretty sure you actually punched her kick back there. You know that's like the exact opposite of what we're supposed to do, right?"

Phasma lifted the hogu off, and suddenly it was like Rey could breathe again. "It was the only thing I could think to do," Rey admitted, somewhat sheepishly. "And besides, Snoke told me to."

" _Master_  Snoke," Ben corrected, with a nervous glance around, apparently to make sure the man in question wasn't in the area, "And it wasn't like we were expecting you to take his advice. I mean, it's one thing when he tells me to do stuff like that - I can take it. But you..."

Rey put her hands on her hips ( _shit, that stung_ ) and gave him an expectant glance after sharing a  _look_  with Phasma. "What? I'm what?"

Ben avoided her eyes. He was looking distinctly uncomfortable. "Nevermind."

Phasma laughed and wrapped an arm around his neck, putting him in a headlock and playfully tousling his hair. "Do you want any ketchup to go with that foot in your mouth, Benji?"

Ben reached up and forcibly pulled himself from her grip. "I told you not to call me that, Phasma," he growled, eyes seeming to skittishly search the area, as if looking for someone.

"Not that I'm sad to see you guys or anything," Rey jumped in, seeing the mounting tension between the two, "But what are you doing here? I thought you didn't take part in tournaments, Phasma."

"I don't but," Phasma elbowed Ben, "Mr.  _Chosen One_  here actually convinced Master Snoke to come to this."

"I didn't know you were going to be here," Ben admitted, looking bashful and still a little nervous, "I just wanted to try something different for a change. It's...kind of awkward now, actually."

Rye tilted her head. "Why's that?"

Just then, the mic that announced her fight earlier rang out again. "Would a  _Mr. Kylo Ren_ come to main demonstration ring.  _Mr. Kylo Ren_  to the demonstration ring."

That name had been spinning in her mind for a while. It wasn't that she hadn't been curious. In truth, she had countless questions, all stemming from the first time she'd delivered an order to  _Kylo Ren_  from Maz. The few times she'd heard that name hadn't been positive, but at some point, a blanket of concern, and probably fear of the answers to those questions, covered her need to know the truth.

And so, she'd never asked. She'd been content to smile, nod, and pretend she'd never really come across the name, and anyway, he was probably perfectly nice, so why bother asking?

Rey took a deep breath and steeled her resolve. She faced her fellow Taekwondoians and asked with faux firmness, "Who's Kylo Ren?"

She didn't miss that Ben's eyes widened at the name. She remembered him reacting similarly the night she'd delivered food to his apartment. He looked her over, and something tense and terrified seemed to take root in his body as he softly answered, "I am."

There was a note of finality to it. One she plaintively did not pay attention to.

Rey ignored her turning stomach, frowned, and raised an expectant eyebrow. She tried to keep her voice carefully bereft of any accusations, because it wasn't the time for such things. "You changed your name? What was wrong with Ben? I thought it was a nice name."

He didn't answer. She could see the rigid shoulders and the coiling of his core as he seemed desperate to cut and run.

"Maybe this isn't the best time for this conversation," Phasma said quietly, "It's kind of a long explanation, cupcake."

"Can you  _not_  call me that, Phasma?" Rey snapped. "And what's that supposed to mean?" she asked suspiciously. "Either he changed his name or he didn't. How is it a  _long story?_ "

Rey crossed her arms and ignored the  _Warning! Warning! Danger!_  look Phasma was shooting her and made eye contact with Ben. It was an admirable feat in and of itself considering he looked like he was halfway to ordering a plane ticket to Siberia. "What should I call you? Ben? Kylo?"

"Don't-" he started, and then stopped. He seemed to choke on the words. "Don't. Not you. You weren't supposed to-"

Luke's angry voice came up from behind them, simultaneously scorning and mournful as he interrupted, "What, you didn't think she'd notice? Didn't even think it might be nice to give the kid a head's up?"

It seemed that their conversation was starting to attract attention while the announcer was still dutifully calling for Kylo Ren to appear.

Ben growled, turning to the man, who'd taken them both in at some point. There was an uncharacteristic sneer on his face - an ugly, brutish thing that twisted his features into something unrecognizable. "Luke, this isn't any of your busin-"

"It absolutely  _is_  my business," Luke corrected, his voice failing to be a calm balm across Ben's hatred. "You're my nephew and I love you, and it  _sure as hell is_ my business if the rumors I've heard about Kylo Ren are true - especially when I find out  _Kylo Ren_ is my damned nephew."

Rey blinked, and whispered, already knowing she didn't want to know the answer, "What rumors?"

"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said gruffly. "It's not your concern."

She looked pleadingly to Ben, searching his face for an answer, but he just grimaced and looked away. "He's right, Rey," he said harshly.

"That's not fair," she snapped. "One of you is going to explain this to me. What the  _hell_  is going on? Ben's changed his name. Okay, so it's kinda weird, whatever, but what's all this about  _rumors?_ Something's going on, and neither of you are telling me, and it doesn't make any fucking sense!"

Rey thought she heard someone from the crowd gathering around her say "Language," and it made her want to wring their neck.

Ben refused to look at her, instead, choosing to meet Luke's eyes. "Please don't make me explain," he said quietly, and Rey didn't feel true concern until she saw how his bottom lip trembled. "Please, Uncle Luke."

"Oh, now I'm  _Uncle Luke?"_ the man huffed, "You've got some nerve. Why don't you tell Rey what you've done. If you care  _so_  much for her, why don't you tell her who you are?" There was something old and weary in his next question."Do you even know anymore?"

Ben took a deep breath, and whispered so quietly Rey barely heard him.

"Uncle Luke, I feel like I'm being torn apart."

Luke shook his head, gritting out the words, "And whose fault is that?"

"I-"

"I believe they are calling for you, my student."

All four of them turned to see Master Snoke, who'd snuck up on them. There was something very different between this Snoke and the one she'd seen earlier. Rey could never have imagined the Snoke who'd told her to  _destroy her opponent_  sporting the kind grandfatherly smile he currently wore. But upon closer look, underneath that thin veneer, Rey could see the rigidity and harshness from earlier, creeping from behind the benevolent smile.

And she'd thought he was creepy  _before._

Ben-  _Kylo Ren_ \- whoever he was nodded, meekly. "Yes sir. I'll...I'll be right there."

He nodded slowly, and didn't even meet Rey's eyes before he did a sort of apologetic half-bow, before following after his Master, with Phasma in tow.

* * *

Despite the auger that was slowly and methodically shredding his heart to pieces, Luke didn't want to miss Ben's performance. Tournaments occasionally did demonstrations, mostly for audience members and lower belts who weren't taking part, but they were never dull and often showcased some truly fantastic people and talent. It brought some small comfort to Luke's heart to know that Ben hadn't given up on the Taekwondo, even if it did mean he kept training with Snoke.

He was curious about what Ben's performance was. When he saw his nephew assume his starting stance after bowing to the tournament representatives and the assorted members of the audience (they'd gathered quite a curious gathering during their argument), Luke immediately knew what he was going to do.

He should have known - he was the one to personally grade Ben's first creative poomse. He was also the one to discreetly film the young man' practice sessions in the Dojang and send the videos to Han. It was still something he'd never confessed to him, partly due to the ever-terrible relationship between Ben and his father, and partly because Luke didn't want Ben to think he'd betrayed his trust.

 _Too late for that_ , the fatigue in his soul prompted.

But the song that came on through the speakers was not the one for Ben's creative poomse. His song had started hard, and ended softly, a small testament to Ben's progression at the time.

> " _This world will never be,_  
>  _What I expected._  
>  _And if I don't belong,_  
>  _Who would have guessed it?_

When Ben started moving, Luke noticed that it was still a little like his creative poomse. A reversed stance here, a knife-hand where there'd been a block before, but the movements were familiar. Familiar and  _twisted._

> " _I will not leave alone,_  
>  _Everything that I own._  
>  _To make you feel like it's not too late,_  
>  _It's never too late."_

The more the song progressed, the more the changes happened. The movements were all wrong. No blocking moves, double-hammer fists where there'd been cat-stance middle block, and there was a lurking, mounting tension and anger, building, growing, and eventually, showing on Ben's once-peaceful face.

> " _Even if I say_  
>  _It'll be alright._  
>  _Still I hear you say,_  
>  _You want to end your life."_

An elbow and knee combination came with a devastating series of blows that would have been enough to knock out a full grown man. Luke was no expert on other martial arts, but it was almost impossible not to recognize the bouncing fighting stance of a Muay Thai practitioner. He switched, swapping into short brutal movements with his hands, finishing on a tumble on the ground that would have broken through bones.

> " _Now and again we try_  
>  _To just stay alive._  
>  _Maybe we'll turn it all around,_  
>  _'Cause it's not too late,_  
>  _It's never too late."_

Judo? Or Jiu-jitsu? Luke wasn't familiar enough with the arts to fully distinguish them.

"What do you think of my student?" asked a voice from beside him.

Luke glanced to the side, and was unsurprised to see Snoke standing there, arms behind his back, with the kind of serenity only a fully satiated wolf could feel.

"You did this," Luke said flatly, gesturing to the ring. People were starting to murmur and shuffle in place as they watched the performance.

"The tournament organizers were very eager to have one of my students present," Snoke said amiably. "And after my student brought up the idea of  _poomse,_ " he said the last word with only the barest hints at his true feelings to the matter, "Well, once I knew you were coming to this competition, I knew I had to thank you somehow."

"How'd you find out?" Luke's eyes narrowed.

"Oh please, Master Luke," Snoke chuckled, and the sound was like a vat of acid to his ears, "People talk. People listen. People observe. How many students do you have now? Thirty or so? About a dozen down from last year. And another dozen from the year before that."

"What of it?"

"You're hardly a spring chicken anymore, Luke. Your students can see that. They don't want to be tied to some relic who's too stuck in his ways to see the opportunities in front of him."

Something was threatening to rise up from his stomach. "I'm not selling you my Dojang, Snoke."

"No, I don't expect you will," Snoke shook his head. "I just have to wait a few years and by then I imagine you'll think differently. My offer will be lower by then."

Something old and familiar threatened to claw its way out of his chest, but Luke suppressed that beast with deft experience and iron will. "Then why bother asking now if you're going to get it eventually?"

Snoke hadn't done anything illegal, per se, that Luke could prove. As much as Luke would have liked to report the man for being an absolute hardliner and all around ass, that wasn't an option.

But if he could get him to admit to anything, literally  _anything_ , then Luke would jump on it like a shark in a blood frenzy.

"Oh Master Skywalker, it's certainly easier to wait, but I thought I'd offer you some grace before I repurpose that building. Historical value needs to be preserved."

"My father left that place when he was twenty-three," Luke said bluntly. "I hardly think that qualifies as having historical value."

"Then let it be because I enjoy victory, my friend," Snoke said the word  _friend_  in the same tone one might use for  _fool_. "Why don't we sit back, and enjoy my student's performance? He's worked especially hard on it, these last few weeks."

Luke tore his eyes away from the blue abyss behind Snoke's, only to be unable to watch Ben continue.

"You did this," he all-but snarled at the man.

Snoke shook his head, and made to depart. Ben's song was finally done, resulting in an awkward stilted applause rising from the crowd.

Before the man left, he turned his head and said, "No, Master Skywalker, you did. I just offered him the tools to learn that which he wanted."

Luke watched the man stare at his nephew, who was breathing heavily, having assumed a pose where he held a high-section side-kick for several seconds straight. It was a kick that, kicked up from the ground as Ben's position indicated, would have shattered someone's chin, cut their tongue in half from the sudden jaw snap, and knocked them out cold.

"Is it my fault if he chose to accept?" Snoke asked, before disappearing into the crowd.

* * *

Minutes later (though it seemed like hours), Rey was still standing on the sidelines of the zone in which Ben had performed his creative poomse, her hands shaking, and she couldn't put the words to it - the way she felt, but something-  _something_ was wrong. Horribly,  _horribly_  wrong.

She desperately wished she knew the words to explain why, or what it was.

His performance had been an impressive show, and anyone who didn't know Ben would have simply been impressed with his display of strength and power.

But Rey knew him. She'd been shocked enough that he'd perform something so personal in public, but...but what he'd performed was just  _wrong_. It had been a mix of traditional Taekwondo moves (performed with unnatural aggression), and other, more lethal-looking moves that, for some reason, turned her stomach.

How were those the same hands that held her?

How were those lips - the ones curled into a sneer for most of the poomse - the lips that pressed so softly into her skin?

How on earth had Ben -  _her Ben_  - performed in such a... _terrifying_  way?

Rose's words echoed in her mind...the same words that had been playing on repeat for longer than Rey wanted them to.

_Love is blind._

Rey took a moment, and caught her breath, taking another minute to push those questions out of her mind. She reminded herself that he'd probably gotten swept up in the song he'd picked (though, what a choice  _that_  song had been). Or, possibly, Ben just wasn't one of those people who carefully crafted their creative poomses to convey meaning.

( _Of course he was one of those people,_ her brain corrected.)

Her heart only pounded harder at that reminder, but it nearly stopped entirely as his arm brushed against hers.

Rey looked over and blinked up at him, almost feeling the need to pinch herself, because for some odd reason, he didn't seem real. Or, maybe he just didn't seem recognizable?

"Your poomse was…" she bit her lip, stopping the words she instinctively wanted to say, " _enlightening."_

He gave her an odd look, as if trying to figure out what she meant. Finally he said in a solemn voice, "Master Snoke wasn't pleased with it. He said I have-" Ben got quiet for a minute, and said softly, "He said I have too much of my father's heart in me."

(She wondered how a man like Snoke could get away with meeting Han Solo without a broken nose.)

"I'd say that's a good thing," she said, her heart sending a brief, but earth-shattering  _pang_  at the look that crossed Ben's face at the mention of his father.

Ben let out a long, deflating breath before he snorted. "I wouldn't."

This was familiar ground, but one she was not willing to relent on. She sucked in a breath and said, quiet and sure, "Your father was a good man."

His eyes snapped up to hers and he scoffed. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

The world was unfair. She wanted to know. Why did Han give him up? Even knowing Ben's side of the story, it seemed so out of character for Han - grumpy, craggly, and sarcastic Han who so desperately wanted to know if his son was happy every time he came into the diner - it seemed so out of character for him.

"No, Ben," her voice got softer, because if she was being honest, she pitied Ben for the fact that he clearly hadn't known Han. "You're the one who doesn't know what he's talking about. You know-" She hesitated, deciding if she should say the words on the tip of her tongue.

"He was going to adopt me," she whispered finally, "...before he died."

Ben's eyes widened for a moment, and he gave her an odd, undecipherable look. "Rey  _Solo_ , huh?" He huffed, "He would have disappointed you."

The soft, dagger-like words were out of her mouth before she had the chance to regret them. "You're the one disappointing me."

He let out a breath he'd been holding and looked at her through tired brown eyes, nodded, and muttered, "Yeah, that sounds about right." His shoulders dropped, and his voice became something bizarre and world-rendering - hard, and final, "Rey...you should probably get used to calling me Kylo Ren."

He sighed and turned his back to her, but before he left, he paused as if he was going to say something, then shook his head, and walked away, taking her heart with him.

It was far too late to get it back now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Laura Dern, pep talks, and an uninvited dinner guest.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> Attack: At least we gave you fluff before the angst, right? 
> 
> Onfire: We had an amusing conversation about a misconception of what a normal tree-size for Christmas is. She thinks 6 feet is tiny. I think she's a tree elitist.
> 
> Let's see….well, more of what Snoke is doing with Ben. Since we couldn't go for the creepy grooming relationship that canon-Snoke had with canon-Ben, considering they only met a couple of years ago, we decided to model their relationship on something different, but very toxic all the same. Phasma's not in the know yet, but she will be eventually, and I hope everyone enjoys the reactions the characters go through as we approach the reveal.
> 
> Fun question. I ended up writing one of the fluff scenes this chapter! Can anyone take a guess at which one I had a hand in?
> 
> I apologize for the delay in the chapter. I've been having computer trouble that finally has cleared up after recycling the old computer and getting a new one, and in fact I think a good 5K of these words came today, so if they're rough, that's on me.
> 
> PS: We tend to answer spoiler-y asks on Tumblr, so if you like spoilers, come find us there.
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	31. Black Belt, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As our Master always says: "Black Belt is just the beginning."
> 
> This promotion is arguably the biggest (or one of the biggest) Rey will deal with, so it'll take place across two chapters. This is a shorter chapter, but I think, maybe, you'll see why we ended it where we did.
> 
> I will say, I think the music mentioned in the last scene is fairly important to the scene, and I'd definitely recommend having it on.
> 
> Onfire wrote the first scene, and it's easily my favorite Luke-Rey interaction. I handled the other scenes. We hope you like the chapter!
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


_**Black Belt or Sash:**  Black signifies the darkness beyond the Sun. A black belt seeks new, more profound knowledge of the Art. As they begin to teach others, he plants new seeds and helps them grow and mature. Through this, a Black Belt blossoms and grows through the ranks in a never-ending process of self-growth, knowledge, and enlightenment._

* * *

Tournament was the last notable thing to happen to Rey in the intervening weeks between it and her next promotion. Spring semester started up with all the fanfare of a monochrome painting, even if the classes were different. Rey, still firmly an English major, was finding herself writing more papers on philosophical questions she had no interest in, and performing half-hearted experiments as part of her introductory science courses the university still required of her. She'd yet to find something that truly grabbed her interest, and the more time passed, the more she started spending at the Dojang, even when classes weren't scheduled.

Ben hadn't popped up anywhere since their last conversation. Apparently his performance at the tournament had made such an impression on his Master - good or bad, he didn't really say through his texts - that he'd even started going on overnight trips with some of his coworkers. Rey wasn't entirely sure how much of that was true, because they lived in the same building and she saw Phasma at least once every few days - she'd taken to audibly grumbling whenever she had to make the three story trek up to Hux's place.

Bothering Phasma didn't work out, because surprisingly, the woman didn't have a clue what Ben was doing. She could only say that Ben was a lot more involved with the  _First Order_  than she was nowadays.

It was becoming more and more frequent, Rey couldn't help but notice, even as she flowed from the end of Tageuk Sam-Jang into Sa-Jang without stopping. She felt like she was losing him, piece by piece, with each passing day.

Her fists tightened and her body threatened to tremble as she moved quickly into Taeguk O-Jang, moving through the movements with simple, efficient motions. Her side-kicks were complemented beautifully with a backfist that would have made her proud any other time, when she wasn't so wrapped up in everything.

Promotion started tomorrow, and there was no word on if Ben was coming to watch on Sunday. He'd already missed the last one, and though she'd proclaimed it wasn't an issue and that she completely understood, Rey admitted to herself that she wanted him there. She didn't even know if it was going to be another extra promotion where she wouldn't have the opportunity to advance, and Luke just hadn't had time to speak with her about it, having foregone her private training sessions for other matters.

Luke had been absurdly busy dealing with a mountain of paperwork and bills that seemed to have just materialized from nothing, in addition to handling various extra classes he'd started taking on during the day, and the growing list of issues with the Dojang. One of the mat walls sections had peeled off, exposing the bare wall underneath, and the lights in the girls locker room were starting to flicker for some reason that had to do with the electrical wiring in the building.

It was Friday night, just a scant few days into February, and senior testing was going to start early the next morning. Luke had told them all to bring something to warm themselves up, so Rey could only assume they were going to bring the insanity outside again. She only hoped it wasn't another tower run. The second time had sucked just as much as the first - the only difference was that she'd been ready for the pain. Not that it made much difference.

She was the only one left in the Dojang, everyone else having left early to rest before testing the next day.

The Dojang felt hauntingly vast, even as she worked through her poomse - including Koryo, which she'd  _maybe_  not mastered, but had brought up to an acceptable level in recent weeks.

She was halfway through Koryo, in fact, when Luke emerged from his office. She did not acknowledge him as she jabbed outwards with her third tiger claw strike, instead letting out a kiyap that would have terrified her former white belt self. She wanted to scream, at the world, at Ben, at Luke, and even at herself.

But she didn't. She swallowed the shakes threatening to escape her, and kept forward. Her tiger claw turned into a front snap kick, transitioning into a front stance, followed by a knee grab.

Koryo was hard. She had no idea why this one form, so easily performed by the Black Belts and even the few other Bodan belts in the Dojang felt impossible to get right. It was like the movements actively fought against her with every step.

"Ba Ro!" Luke called, when she'd finished.

Expecting this, she returned to her starting position for Koryo, palms facing outward in the now instinctive triangle shape.

"You've improved, Rey," he noted. He was still wearing his dobok from earlier. In fact, come to think of it, she'd never seen him wear anything other than his dobok in a Taekwondo setting. In contrast Snoke, who-

Rey closed her eyes and banished the thought. Now was not the time for such worries.

"Thank you, sir. I- I've been practising."

Luke took a glance around at the empty room. "I can see that," he said, tone dry, "It's Friday night, kid. Why aren't you relaxing with your friends or, I don't know, out on a date?"

Because the only man she had eyes for was currently too busy avoiding her and everyone else he knew due to some weird self-inflicted guilt trip. Of course, since that person was Luke's nephew, and she did  _not_  want to invite any more drama into her life, she just said, "I'm not interested in seeing anyone right now."

Luke crossed his arms and snorted. "Kuman."

Rey returned to her normal ready stance.

"At ease, kid." Luke started walking around her, even as she relaxed in place, "If you're going to lie, you might want to get better at it."

"I'm not lying, sir," Rey lied. Again.

"Sure you aren't, just like I'm not familiar with you and your moods."

"I do  _not_  have moods." She glowered at the man.

"You're  _moping_ ," Luke pointed out, voice not at all considerate. "Why are you moping?"

"I'm not moping," Rey snapped, even if she was. She'd half considered putting on her special comfort/feeling like crap playlist, but now she was grateful she didn't. Who knows what Luke would have been saying then.

"Could it be unrequited love?" he mused, a bit playfully.

"Please. Stop."

"Because if so, I can tell you all about it," the man sighed faux mournfully, "Did you know I once passed up a chance to meet Laura Dern? I'd never been hungover until that day. I didn't forgive Han for years after that."

"I'm sure," Rey couldn't help but snort. "And I'm sure Principal Holdo loves to hear that whenever the topic comes up."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Luke denied, oblique as ever.

Outside, a howling wind seemed to shake the building. Rey shivered, but not from cold. The sound reminded her of the applause Ben's demonstration had garnered from everyone in the audience that had gathered at the competition a few weeks earlier. It was like all they could see was the body performing the strikes, and not the person behind every movement.

Master Luke was still eyeing her, patiently.

"It's just...stuff."

"Hmm. Stuff, you say? Anything you want to talk about?"

Rey shifted in place but said nothing.

Luke seemed to watch her for a moment before breaking off and shaking his head. Instead, he switched tracks by asking, "Did you ever figure out what Koryo meant?"

"Well," Rey shifted in place, "I tried looking it up. Like you said, it's a name for an old Korean Dynasty."

Nodding, Luke took up position a few feet to her left. He gestured for her to keep going even as he took up Koryo's starting position. "And?"

"At the time, they were in danger of being overrun by Mongolian invaders," Rey offered, also assuming the same starting stance. Her hands throbbed with an ache that was sure to enact vengeance on her body later.

"They were?" Luke asked, and, on some unseen signal, began with his poomse. "Did they not lose?"

Rey swallowed and started tentatively following him. She kept her eyes on his form, and drinking every twitch of the arm, every move with eagle-eye accuracy. "They lost, eventually. There were...I think seven wars in all? At the end, they just...couldn't face it. I guess."

"Hmmm," Luke's kicks were slow and measured. It was a testament to his control that his leg didn't waver even an inch out of place, "And what happened afterwards?"

Rey's own attempts at even-paced kicks were laughable, but her voice betrayed none of her frustration. "They persevered."

"How so?"

She wasn't blind to what he was asking, but he was fishing for something. "Their culture. Their people. Even when they weren't actively fighting - when it seemed they'd lost everything - they pushed back against their new leaders. They never gave in. Not entirely."

Luke chuffed as he slowly extended his hands out for the traditional tiger claw strikes. "A bit dramatic but I suppose it gets the point across." He paused as he let out a kiyap that seemed to shake the boards in the floor. "Do you know what the movements of this form mean, Rey? "

Rey breathed as she too followed Luke's example, only her kiyap was much quieter. She'd thought there was something off about the poomse and was not surprised to learn when she looked into it.

"Wisdom."

Neither spoke as they kept working on their movements. Luke's stances were perfect. Iconic. Unrelenting.

His was the form of a master, and hers, a novice.

At some point, Rey gave up on following his every move, and decided to go at her own pace. It was somewhat erratic, a little all over the place, but...it felt natural.

"One more time kid." Luke's voice pierced through the cloud occupying her thoughts. "One last time. Show me what you got. Koryo Junbi!"

There was no clear realization, in her brain. No "Ah ha" moment.

No  _Eureka._

Rey assumed the stance. This was important, some part of her distantly realized.

But whatever panic a thought like that normally would have drummed up seemed...unnecessary. She met her Master's eyes and nodded, signaling she was ready.

_For anything._

"Shijah!"

She turned to the side and began the first of Koryo's steps.

Rey...flew. For lack of a better word. Her balance hadn't suddenly improved, and she knew her hours of practice and subsequent exhaustion were showing in every step and strike she made, but...for the first time in forever,  _she didn't care_. She didn't care about perfection, or about nailing every step and correcting every minor imprecision. She knew the form inside and out. She'd practised it for days, weeks, months. And, in a way, she'd been practising it her whole life.

Koryo was not about perfection. Just the opposite, in fact.

Laughter threatened to bubble out of her but somehow she'd suppressed it. Tears threatened to come out, but she let those go as well.

She broke imaginary concrete with every strike. She stopped armies with every block.

It was amazing.

Finally, because all things must come to an end, Rey finished Koryo with one final and brutal kihap, a sudden and profound noise that almost knocked her back with its intensity.

Silence.

And then...

Clapping. Master Luke was  _clapping_.

He said the commands for her to return to starting position, and it all felt very ethereal.

"You're ready."

"Sir?" Suddenly her heart was in her throat because holy shit.  _Holy. Shit_. "You don't mean...?"

"Tomorrow you begin testing for Black Belt," Luke confirmed, a single proud nod on a face worn down by ages and a lifetime of teaching. "Do you have your creative poomse ready?"

"I- yes, sir." She'd been working on it for what felt like forever, even if it had only been a couple of months, since Ben had offered her that small cryptic piece of advice on the steps of their building back in December. Even then, it hadn't compared nearly enough in difficulty to Koryo. Once she'd picked the song, the steps had just... _flown._  "I just- Master Luke, are you sure?"

Luke looked at her, eyebrows raised. "Why? Are you not sure?"

"No, not that it's just-" she swallowed and tried to calm down. The world was suddenly playing at three times the regular speed and it was getting hard to keep up with the ramping thoughts in her overly imaginative brain. "This is a bit sudden. Don't you have to place orders for the certificates and stuff?"

"Already done," he supplied, sending her a smirk. "I had a feeling you'd get it this time around."

He'd already prepared everything?

"You-" Rey choked back a set of words that would probably be considered  _too_ honest, "-you've already done all that? Just for me?"

"There's no 'just' about it, kid," Luke said coming in close and putting a hand on her shoulder. Off to the side, Rey saw the lights in the hallway flicker. "You're ready."

Not knowing what else to do, Rey tackled him in a hug that would have knocked a weaker man to the floor.

* * *

Rey felt her lungs slowly fill with air, and after holding it in for a moment, she exhaled slowly, and repeated the process a few times.

And yet her heart didn't stop pounding.

Saturday's private senior testing had passed with a blur, and now, on Sunday morning, she was alone in the locker room. In ten short minutes, the official and public part of her Black Belt examination was going to begin, and suddenly everything she'd ever done was coming into question.

She'd slept, soundly, if not restfully, she'd had a healthy but unmemorable breakfast, and walked the short distance from her apartment to the Dojang. As soon as she'd stepped through the doors, suddenly it was like an electrically-charged rod was pressing in on her from all sides. Fear and terror wrapped around her head like a blanket, and it was only running into the dim light of the locker room that made the all-encompassing wave recede.

The corners of the locker room seemed to hang with shadows that moved and danced in the light seeping in from the hallway. Rey was one of the first people there that day, and so far no one else had come disturb her. The shapes seemed to grasp at her the longer she stayed, and her petrified mind couldn't do anything but conjure up images of the nails and claws and monsters she'd forgotten long ago. Staying felt like a terrible idea, but going out there seemed monumentally  _worse._  
  
_I'm fine,_  she told herself, repeating an old mantra she'd adopted years ago, when in Plutt's care.

_I'm fine. I'm safe. And if I step out of here, I'll be okay too._

She'd stopped using it... _wow,_  something like five years ago now. When life's circumstances had proven the little maxim otherwise.

It was the desperate move of a child, and one she couldn't bring herself to care about.

Her breath was suddenly coming out in gasps, and she struggled to stop her eyes from watering.

This must have been a mistake. Or a dream. Yeah, that was it. It was a dream. She was bound to wake up any minute now in Plutt's basement, only to find herself attending 9th grade for the first time. There's no way she'd be brave enough to just walk up to a Grand Master in real life and demand training - no way she'd be capable of putting her fist through boards, no way she'd be lucky enough to find a family, or to make real friends, or-

A shape appeared in the doorway.

"Rey? You in there, sweetheart?"

The shape's size seemed to blot out all other incoming light, and all she could see were the faint contours of a finely carved face and haunting brown eyes.

Ah, right, and there was another confirmation that this was, indeed, some sort of elaborate dream. In no world would a man like Ben Solo ever consider her such a close friend, or look at her like she was the only person in the room, or wrap his arms around-

"Hey, Rey," he said softly from the door, "Luke sent me. Can I come in?"

She took a shallow, shaky breath, and replied, "Sure."

If it was a dream, she might as well play along.

Ben walked over to where she sat on top of one of the counters. Twenty minutes earlier she'd hopped up and hugged her knees to her chest, trying to catch her breath, but now that he was here she dropped her legs down and let them hang from the edge of where she sat.

His dark eyes were filled with concern, and he slowly moved to stand in front of her. They were nearly at the same height thanks to the counter, and if she hadn't been so focused on her breathing, she may have been nervous for a completely different reason.

"Hi," he whispered.

They hadn't really talked since the tournament, and all the sadness she'd seen in him then was still written across his face, and injected into that single word. There were a million questions she had for him, but right now, she needed to calm down and focus, and despite everything that was going on with him, Rey found that she was just relieved he was there.

Rey whispered back, praying he wouldn't snap at her for not using his preferred name. She just couldn't bring herself to say it.

"Hi, Ben."

He seemed conflicted for a moment, but then placed his hands at her waist and pulled her closer to the edge of the counter so he could hug her.

"I hope you don't mind me coming in here," he said softly, his chin resting on her shoulder. His silky hair brushed against her cheek, and she felt herself lean into him. "Luke said you'd been in here for a while and he was worried you were panicking, so he asked me to check on you."

"That was nice of him," Rey admitted. "I'm...kind of surprised, honestly. But I'm glad he sent you." She took a deep breath, and said with a nervous titter to her voie, "I'm really freaking out."

He pulled out of the hug and considered her carefully, gently tucking a lock of her hair back behind her ear. "Any particular reason why?"

Rey frowned, and shrugged. "I'm testing for my Black Belt. Isn't that enough?"

"Hm. I guess that's a good reason," Ben nodded, smiling. "But you know you wouldn't be testing today if you weren't going to pass, right?"

"Yeah," she said weakly, "but I don't want to just  _pass_. I want to make Luke proud." Then she added quietly, "I want to make  _you_  proud."

His expression softened, his eyes searching her face slowly, and said somberly, "You know, I'm not sure I deserve to have a friend like you in my life."

Ben cleared his throat, and she noticed he'd turned a bit red. She'd been noticing that more and more lately, and she wasn't entirely sure what to think of it, or what to do about it. If his friendship wasn't so important to her, she probably would have said  _to hell with it_  and just kissed him by now, but a voice in her head reminded her how much more awkward everything would be if she'd misread things.  _Again._

But then there were moments like this, where she could have sworn his eyes lingered on her lips, that made her think there was no way she could be misreading things.

"Which part are you most nervous about?" he asked finally.

Rey sighed. "I'm not nervous about the spar. I've never sparred two on one before, but I'm not worried about that as much. I'm not nervous about my poomse...not really. Maybe I'm feeling weird about showing it in front of so many people, but...I guess I'm mostly anxious about what Luke may ask me, and  _oh_." She winced, "I'm not looking forward to the concrete. I saw Luke bringing it into the Dojang this morning and that...looks painful."

She watched as he pulled a hand through his hair, probably trying to figure out how to reply in a way that wouldn't make her panic. "Honestly, I broke mine on the first shot," he said. "It hurt, more than a board, but I think it hurts more if you don't break it." He gave her a sympathetic smile and reassured, "You're definitely capable of it. Just remember that you're aiming for the floor, not the top of the block. You want to go straight through - stopping at the surface won't break anything," he paused, and added, "...except, maybe your hand."

"Oh, gee, thanks Ben," Rey replied dryly. "That makes me feel  _so_  much better. Are you always this good at pep talks?"

She remembered he wasn't. Ben usually overshot the mark or completely flailed about when it come to anything like being emotionally supportive. It was honestly one of his more amusing and lovable traits, because underneath that hapless exterior she knew Ben  _cared._  Ben Solo had a capacity to feel and sympathize to put any human being to shame, because when he picked someone to care about he did so wholly and emphatically.

He hesitated for a moment before realizing she was teasing, and then laughed. "Sorry, sweetheart," he said, and then-

She'd happened to bite her lip while smiling at him and suddenly she realized she wasn't imagining things. Ben had inhaled quietly, but sharply, and his eyes had darkened and  _oh_.

 _Oh,_  she wasn't misinterpreting any of it, was she?

Unbidden, her arms curled back around his neck, and for the first time she realized he was standing between her legs. His hands were still at her waist, but after a moment, one of them came up to rest under her chin, and he tilted her head up ever so slightly.

Rey swallowed hard, and finally took a deep breath as his lips pressed softly against her forehead. He lingered there, and murmured words against her skin that she'd never forget.

"You're going to be amazing, starlight. I know it. You're going to shine."

* * *

No less than fifteen minutes into the Promotion, Ben had received a call. On his  _other_  phone. It had been Master Snoke (otherwise he might have ignored it entirely), and when he ducked out of the Dojang to take the call, he'd found he had little choice but to leave.

When Master Snoke demanded an in-person meeting, there wasn't much of an option but to say  _yes, sir_. Thankfully it had only lasted a few hours, but Ben mourned the fact that he'd missed so much of Rey's Black Belt promotion. Something in him suspected that the timing of the meeting had been on purpose, but he knew better than to voice that suspicion.

He got back to the Dojang to find that someone had claimed the seat he'd been in before leaving, so he chose to stand behind the seats, in the back of the Dojang. It offered him a surprisingly good view of the entire space, and he was relieved to notice that Rey was standing in the middle of the room, ready to perform her creative poomse. He'd arrived just in time.

He watched Rey take a deep breath, nod to Poe, and center herself.

The room went silent as the soft notes and lyrics of the song she'd chosen began, and then she started to move.

When she did, it was as if the whole room had suddenly started to spin around him, and Ben's only choice was to stare, and pray he'd still know his own name by the time she was done.

> " _Hello darkness, my old friend;_  
>  _I've come to talk with you again._  
>  _Because a vision softly creeping;_  
>  _Left its seeds while I was sleeping."_

She rose from a kneeling position in one deceptively simple-looking motion, hands carefully rising from where they'd been in her lap to form a stolid and powerful knife block. A hush fell upon the crowd then, a silent patient thing that seemed to demand silence for the duration of her performance. With a slow inhale, she brought her foot back into a back stance, adjusting her weight without breaking pace.

 _When did Rey become so...-_ he let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding -  _graceful?_

> " _And the vision that was planted in my brain,_  
>  _Still remains,_  
>  _Within the sound of silence."_

Her pace wasn't slow. It wasn't a frenetic, machine-gun speed he'd often seen in these performances, but it definitely wasn't slow. It was exactly as fast as she needed it to be.

In the ring, Ben saw Rey gradually turning in place with a single controlled spinning hook kick. Her balance was a little precarious, but the fact that she'd done the technique as measured and easily as she did spoke volumes of her training and effort.

His eyes, wide as saucers, roamed over her, soaking in every single step she took.

> " _In restless dreams I walked alone;_  
>  _Narrow streets of cobblestone._  
>  _'Neath the halo of a street lamp,_  
>  _I turned my collar to the cold and damp."_

There was a side-step, then a perfect tumble where she landed on her feet without so much as an  _oomph_. And then, she faced the other side, began her set for that.

The way she moved looked more like dancing than any sort of Taekwondo he'd ever seen or practiced, and watching it left him gasping for air like a fish out of water.

> " _When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light_  
>  _That split the night;_  
>  _And touched the sound of silence."_

She chambered a kick, seeming to compress in place, and launching a high-low-middle roundhouse combination that noticeably awed her junior belts in the audience.

He felt his mouth go dry as he watched her move, perfectly synchronized with the song.

> " _And in the naked light I saw_  
>  _Ten thousand people, maybe more."_

Adding to that set of kicks, she didn't put her foot down, re-chambered it, switched to the opposite cardinal direction and did the same, all in the space of one breath.

As the song crested, he felt his heart pick up to beat in time with the music, and he couldn't tear his eyes from her. Every move was sharp, deadly, and...as a soft voice whispered in his mind,  _beautiful._ So,  _so_  beautiful.

Heartachingly beautiful.

> " _People talking without speaking;_  
>  _People hearing without listening;_  
>  _People writing songs that voices never share-"_

She _-_ she was stunning. Absolutely, completely, undoubtedly  _stunning,_ and Ben felt his breath catch in his throat as his world continued to revolve around her. The only difference was, now he noticed it.  _How had he never noticed?_

> " _And no one dared disturb the sound of silence."_

When her poomse ended, Poe turned the music down a bit, but it was still just loud enough for Ben to hear the lyrics while Rey stood before Luke, awaiting his feedback.

Ben glanced over to gauge Luke's reaction. His blood ran cold to see his uncle staring directly at him.

> " _Fools, said I, you do not know,_
> 
> _Silence like a cancer grows."_

He'd seen.

He'd been watching  _Ben_ watch  _Rey._

Considering the look Luke was giving him, Ben was sure he was going to get an earful, but he'd listen to a lecture every day for the rest of his life if it meant-

> " _Hear my words that I might teach you."_

-if it meant he could watch the heart-stirring performance she'd just given. He didn't know what he'd done wrong, but-

> " _Take my arms that I might reach you."_

_-God_  it had felt like watching something he didn't deserve to see. It had been an utter privilege to watch the performance of this...this  _goddess_ -

> " _But my words, like silent raindrops fell-"_

Yeah, Rey was a  _goddess_ , and he'd give everything he had to worship her, or even just to breathe the same air she breathed.

Absolutely everything he had.

> " _...and echoed in the wells of silence."_

Ben swallowed hard, starting to realize the implications of the thoughts that had been running through his head for the previous six months or so.

> " _And the people bowed and prayed,"_

He could admit, he was attracted to her, and sure, there were definitely feelings there, but...but nobody spoke of worshipping people they were just  _sort-of_  interested in, did they?

> " _To the neon god they made."_

And...nobody used words like  _stunning_ , or  _beautiful_ , or  _breathtaking-_

> " _And the sign flashed out its warning, in the words that it was forming."_

Ben struggled to take a deep, calming breath as he felt his heart pound, and it hit him all at once.

He didn't just  _sort-of_ have feelings for her.

He….oh.  _Oh,_   _wow._

Oh  _fuck._

> " _And the sign said, 'The words of the prophets,_
> 
> _Are written on the subway walls-"_

Luke was still watching him carefully and Ben...well, Ben was finally starting to understand why.

> " _And tenement halls-"_

He gave Luke a slow, knowing nod, turned, and walked out of the Dojang. All of a sudden, he found himself desperately needing fresh air. Or possibly, a very strong drink.

> " _And whispered in the sounds of silence."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A new belt, a great shot, and a trouble-making friend.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> Attack: So, the next chapter will pick up almost immediately where this left off, because Ben's coming back to watch the rest of promotion (even if he needs air/alcohol). We promised suffering, and now that the idiot realizes just how screwed he is, it can truly begin. I know I jest a lot about him suffering with feelings, but I wrote the scene with her creative poomse, and personally I find it touching, so I hope you all do too. I remember watching onfire's creative poomse during his Black Belt exam and watching it definitely changed my feelings toward him. Not into anything romantic (we were both seeing other people at the time), but watching something so personal gives you a deep sense of reverence for a person (at least in my opinion).
> 
> Hopefully we've done a good job of making it really clear that a creative poomse is usually an incredibly personal thing (see below for a link explaining how/why onfire and I picked the songs we did for ours). A ton of thought went into which song to pick for Rey's first poomse - as Ben pointed out in the last chapter, the song doesn't dictate the poomse - the poomse is about the martial artist, and the song should, ideally, be picked accordingly.
> 
> Now, plenty of people just pick cool songs and make a really awesome poomse out of it. That's totally fine, but we figured it would be best to inject as much meaning into every scene as we could. So, when we were picking out poomse songs, we thought that, at first, Rey would probably think it was necessary to go with something intense and action-y (which is why she was considering "Immigrant Song" and "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" in the last chapter).
> 
> Then, multiple characters pointed out to her that it might be better if she did a bit of soul-searching and considered picking a song not for its beat or tempo, but for its meaning. That's why we went for "The Sound of Silence" (specifically, the cover Disturbed did). Now, the song has about a billion different interpretations, but the one we went with was directly from Simon & Garfunkel. According to them, the song is mostly about post-adolescent angst - that feeling of "nobody's listening to me, and nobody's listening to or being honest with anyone." It's about how some people have a nearly impossible time communicating, especially when it comes to their emotions, and we felt that it was a fairly appropriate choice for Rey and everything she's dealt with in the past (and everything she's dealing with now - especially now that she knows secrets are being kept from her).
> 
> Onfire: Not sure what to add to this that Attack hasn't already said. This chapter is shorter than the others, however that's because we try to cut chapters off where they feel good. The chapters immediately leading up to this are meant to evoke a sense of ramping anticipation and we're reaching the payoff soon. This is an important step in Rey's life, but it certainly won't be the last. A Black Belt promotion is unlike regular ones, but it's not the end-all be-all of a martial artists life. The bits about Koryo are to establish a bit more about Rey's character growth.
> 
> We had to drastically cut down on the scene between Rey and Luke because honestly, going into the history behind the Koryo or Goryeo Dynasty is a huge and complicated thing. There are entire books on that subject. Koryo is designated as such for the determination and perseverance of the kingdom for facing the Mongol invasions for so long, and even after they finally became a vassal state of the Mongolian dynasty. "Wisdom" or "wise elder" is a rough translation for the symbol formed from the movements of Koryo if one were to observe from a bird's eye view. In this sense, and in common pop culture, "wisdom" brings to mind an old man or woman, worn by the years and having bits of wisdom to offer a hero or heroine. It also means the acceptance of imperfections, and the acknowledgement that there is still so much left to learn.
> 
> Also Ben is so screwed. So so screwed.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Info on our own Creative Poomse](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/post/175816429715/ok-so-im-not-in-taekwondo-but-i-saw-your-answer-a/)


	32. Black Belt, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooh boy did this chapter get away from us. We've got a lot of different POV here - Rey, Phasma, Ben, Hux...it's a fun chapter. Things are definitely getting interesting.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Also, we're officially over 200K, so if you're still here...well, part of me is still really surprised anyone wants to read 2-3 books worth of our writing, so thanks!
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


Two by eight by sixteen.

Rey clapped for the white belts who'd all managed their hammerfist break on the first try. Jess the white belt had dropped Taekwondo somewhere around the time she'd become a blue belt, but Rey would never forget the conversation she'd had with the somewhat timid waif of a girl not even fifty feet away from where she was currently standing.

She kind of wished she had someone to give her that kind of pep talk now. She looked over at the pile of constructions materials and took note of a very special set.

The others weren't going to be much help, unfortunately, though certainly not for lack of empathy. She'd taken a look around and had noticed that literally the only people left above her in rank were Poe and a few other black belts. Somehow, she'd missed the moment she ended up one of the highest-ranking students in the Dojang. She couldn't help but feel it was all very unfair.

Her smile threatened to turn into a grimace as she passed the now broken boards in her hands to the young man in front of her. He was a stolid and heavily-built young man, but he was also panting awkwardly as he continued gaping at the wooden pieces that were now in his hands.

"Good job," she said, and she meant it. Rey had never forgotten her first break, and how utterly terrifying the mere prospect of putting her fist through something so solid had been at the time.

Two by eight by sixteen.

She winced, feeling her left shoulder cuff give a brief flare, as if to remind her of the punishment she'd put herself through. Despite how it had probably looked during her creative poomse, she'd done  _something_  wrong in her final tumble, and though the sparring session had gone well (2 vs 1 had actually been more confusing than scary), Rey's body was building a short but painful catalog of all the aches and pains she'd acquired during the past couple days.

Maybe to spare her any more potential injuries (holding boards could be surprisingly painful if the person breaking it didn't have good aim), Master Luke had her sit out the rest of the breaks, and she got to watch as each of her Dojang-mates broke their own boards on the first try. She kind of wish he hadn't, because now all she could do was  _think._

Each successful snap of a board sent a sudden ratcheting shudder up her spine. It was taking all she could manage to just stand there and  _breathe_ , because with each happy smile and congratulations from Luke, Rey's nerves started tightening and tuning themselves into something almost audible. A brief twang on the chord of her body would either play sweet music or snap her in half.

Two by eight by sixteen.

Suddenly, because apparently time dilation is thing when you're sufficiently terrified, it was Rey's turn.

"Ladies and gentleman," Master Luke said, speaking to the Dojang at large, "I don't often get the opportunity to test a student beyond board breaks. Many students, whether through choice or circumstance, do not reach the level that our next examinee will be testing for. I've had the honor of knowing this young woman for a little over four years, and in that time I can honestly say-" he looked over at her, a humorous smile on his face, "-I have never met someone as wilfully stubborn as she is."

That got some laughs from everyone - even Rey - who'd smiled weakly in return. She wasn't expecting a speech. No one told her there was going to be a speech about her. Oh _no_ _,_  what if he wanted her to say something?!

She was watching him as he eyed her, and maybe it was a trick of the light, but it looked like he'd just winked at her.

She waved, and tried not to cringe outwardly too much. There would be vengeance. Swift and just. Possibly involving silly string.

Master Luke's eyes moved away from hers and roved over the crowd, stopping briefly at where Ben was standing aside from the built-in seats, before moving on. Rey followed his trail, and took note of who else was there. Finn and Rose, of course, because Rey couldn't ask for better friends. Leia too, which was a little surprising and suddenly added a whole  _new_  level of intimidation to the whole event. Surprisingly, Maz was in the crowd too, though the woman was dressed as if she'd just come from the restaurant across the street, which….would not have been out of place, now that Rey thought about it.

Then she realized Master Luke was still speaking. "-ill be performing the break required for Black Belt, First Dan. These other fine men and women," he gestured to the line of Black Belts who'd formed up alongside him, "have all performed this break. You may think it's unfair to demand such a potentially risky break from people of such varying sizes and strengths, and you are certainly entitled to that. I've heard and entertained all these thoughts myself.  _However."_

People sat and watched with rapt attention, and Rey marveled at her master's oratory skills. Sometimes Master Luke was a bit like an out-of-time warrior, but when it came to Taekwondo the man knew his stuff.

"I. Do. Not. Care," he said, plainly and forcefully, "Life is unfair. I'm sure we've all heard that sentence. It is still true. Whether or not it is fair is irrelevant to the point of this exercise. The point is," his tone changed - piercing and sharp - and she instinctively knew he was speaking to her directly, "are you going to let that stop you, Miss Kenobi?"

His voice was taunting and challenging. She felt herself unconsciously straighten and fall into an at-ease position, "No, Master Luke."

"Are you ready to perform this break, Miss Kenobi?"

"Yes sir!"

A perfunctory nod to conclude his speech was his response. "Good. Then let's begin. Mr. Dameron, Mr. Wilson."

Both the aforementioned snapped to attention, calling their assent in unison.

"Set up the cement."

The two of them bowed and hurried over to the now noticeably smaller pile of boards. They each grabbed a cinder block and brought it over to the center, one having grabbed the special platform used for holding the materials so as to not scuff the floor of the Dojang. The other, well...

Rey breathed in and focused on the centerpiece to it all.

Two inches by eight inches by sixteen inches of cement.

Around eighteen pounds if her late night internet research was true. There was the chance it was heavier, and suddenly because her brain was being  _so_  helpful today, she could vividly imagine that block just falling her foot.

The Dojang was quiet as Poe and Wilson set up the cement break station. They laid the cinder blocks on their side on the platform, such that they each looked like miniature columns, and, after careful murmured instructions from Master Luke, they placed the cement block in between. Each cinder block was left holding two of the corners of the cement up, with only washers to separate the stones from each other to prevent chip damage.

"Miss Kenobi, front and center, please."

Briefly closing her eyes for an exhale, Rey called out an affirmative and walked out from among the rows of students that had gathered.

After a few seconds of him demonstrating the proper form, and then mimicking him, Master Luke broke off, and invited the audience members to move in closer for a better look. Rey resolutely did not turn her head when she heard someone suck in some air and then gasp, "Shit, that's a big rock."

There was some ruffling as some people seemed to shush the offending speaker. It was a little too late though, because the ambiance had been broken, and all the solemn strength she'd been building up just deflated out of her as she turned over those words in her mind. Two inches was not a lot, but she'd seen people break their hands trying to get this right. There was a reason people didn't try putting their fist through cement on a regular basis.

Even when you did it properly, it  _hurt_.

"Ready position," Master Luke barked.

All eyes on her seemed to double down on in their intensity.

She made the testing motion for the downward palm strike one more time. Stopping right above the surface of the cement. She could feel her whole body, the physics of every block, punch, and kick firing on all cylinders in her head. It wasn't just her hand doing the breaking, it was her whole body.

When Master Luke spoke next, it was without his usual gruffness. Instead, something soft and expectant had replaced it, "Whenever you're ready."

Rey looked up from her position, met his eyes, and nodded.

"Go!"

A guttural scream rise from the pit of her core. She cocked her right arm back just a little bit more, rising on the balls of her feet, and pushed off the ground just a little bit, she rose in place, and as soon as she began her descent she twisted and struck, extending the flat of her palm downwards like a spear.

She knew immediately when she'd done so that the timing was off. She was suppose to strike at the exact moment her hand was to meet the slab of cement. As it was, her palm only had the lingering momentum and strength from the downward force of her jump.

Flinching, she pressed her hand against the flat of the cement instead, avoiding unnecessary injury. The carrying force she'd applied still stung smartly in her palm, and despite how much she desperately didn't want to pay attention to the fresh flower of pain cresting in her hand, her brain opted for that instead of looking at everyone else around her. Hips twisted, body slightly knelt, she'd landed perfectly despite the improperly timed strike,

She stood up, and rubbed at the meat of her palm, wincing.

"A little early," Luke noted, likely for the audience's benefit, who'd only just seen her mess up, not why. "Would you like to try again?"

She knew the right answer even before she'd said it. "Yes sir."

"Very well," he crossed his arms and nodded, "Assume the ready position."

This time, as Rey worked through the repetitive motions, she decided to focus less on the cement, and instead on her hand. It wasn't throbbing with pain like when she'd really messed up a break (which really just told her she wasn't trying hard enough), but it still ached a little. She closed her eyes and flexed her hand, taking note of the dexterous feel of just opening and closing her hand into a fist.

She would have preferred using a hammerfist, but she knew, objectively, that it actually carried far greater risk to her hand than if she did a palm strike as intended.

"Are you ready?" Master Luke asked, suddenly, urgent and raucous.

"Sir, yes sir!" she shouted, her own voice sounding distant and foreign.

 _Power through it Rey,_ she thought to herself,  _It's just a stupid rock._

"Go!"

This time, her kihap was much more human and far more intense at the same time. She felt more than saw others take a step back from her, as she  _screamed_ , her own voice tearing raw towards the end. If the essence of every strike was the kihap, then Rey was going to make damn well sure to pour every bit of her into this one.

Her hips twisted in place, she rose on the balls of her feet and as she came down she launched her palm at a straight downward angle.

Her face was almost locked in a fierce rictor of triumph when her hand made contact-

 _Holy shit_   _it fucking hurt._

Her stance crumpled as she dropped to her knees. She let out a keening noise and closed her eyes, trying to will the pain away as she brought her hand to her chest. Little spots of white were appearing at the edge of her vision, and she blinked back the welling tears that threatened to fall.

Her breath came in gasps, in between the various spurts of of lancing pain that raced up her arm from the flat of her palm. Every heartbeat felt like a new iconic entry into her personal dictionary of pain. All the while her fingers seemed to have gone numb, which was just as well, because Rey didn't even want to imagine what the rest of her hand felt like. Her palm alone seemed content to just pulse with protest at the punishment she'd just put it through.

Catching her breath, she looked to the side.

The cement was still there, unbroken.

If there ever was a reason to doubt her own sanity, then right then was that reason, because when Rey saw that completely immaculate stupid rock just sitting there, something primal and powerful jerked her chin upwards to look into Master Luke's concerned eyes.

"One more time," she asked, her voice harsh, "please sir."

He met her stare for a few seconds before nodding. "After we make sure you didn't break anything. Mr. Dameron!"

Poe was at her side in a flash. He kneeled and placed a hand on her back, and gently coaxed her injured hand away with a surprisingly gentle grip.

"How does this feel?" he asked, kneading the skin of her wrist gently. She winced and resisted the urge to whip her hand back.

"It stings," she grit out, biting back the litany of curse words that threatened to escape her.

Poe made a noncommittal noise from the back of his throat. He carefully placed her palm face up in his. "Hey, hey, just breathe alright," he said, shooting her a megawatt smile that made her want to deck him, "Focus on me. Don't look at your hand."

She looked away from her hand and met his eyes.

"Since when do you know so much about this stuff," she muttered, hissing as she felt him do...something, to her hand.

"Been doing this sort of thing for years. Even started volunteering at a local clinic," Poe replied easily, "You're not the first stubborn fool I've had to take care of."

"Great bedside manner, you have there," she snarked without thinking.

"I reserve it for the extra special ones," Poe shot back just as easily. "Can you move your fingers?"

Because her mind was clearly not in the right place, she retracted every single one of her fingers, slowly if not easily, with the exception of her middle one.

There was something viscerally juvenile and rejuvenating about seeing the shock on Poe's face.

" _Ahem_."

And then she remembered where she was.

Both of them looked up to see Master Luke standing there unimpressed. Some members of the audience were noticeably and not-so-noticeably suppressing smiles. Even Ben wore a smirk.

"Mr. Dameron? Your verdict?" Master Luke asked.

Poe stood up, and Rey followed. "No breaks or fractures I could find, sir. I think it was more the shock the impact than anything. She'll have a bruise later though."

Master Luke nodded, and closed his eyes. He seemed to take a moment to consider his next words before opening his eyes and pinning her in place with his gaze. "Miss Kenobi, how do you feel about doing this with your off-hand."

"I- what?"

"You are predominantly right-handed, correct?"

"Yes sir," she answered automatically, because automatic was the only thing she had going for her right then.

"How does your left palm strike hold up to your right?"

Rey curled her left hand fingers in preparation, wincing as she accidentally brought her right hand up in the instinctive guard position.

"It's...different," she breathed. She'd always been predominantly right-handed, but working in Taekwondo had definitely helped equalize the differences between her right and left arms.

"Do you think you can do it?"

Rey didn't say anything.

"Miss Kenobi?"

She focused on the cement block.

Two by eight by sixteen.

She'd seen Ben, Poe, and so many others absolutely demolish dozens just like it.

"Rey?"

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

"It's not about strength, kid," Luke said, and suddenly they were alone in the Dojang, indoors on some Saturday afternoon, early on when Rey had moved in with him and they'd begun their private training.

" _It's never about strength. There are some things that cannot be attained through pure physical strength," he'd lectured that day, and at the time she'd thought he was talking in reference to her outbursts from a few weeks prior. "Many, in fact. Raw power and talent can only get you so far in life and in Taekwondo kid. At one point you're going to hit a wall."_

_She remembered asking what to do then, and he had turned it right back on her, "Well what do you do when you hit a wall?"_

"Find another way around it," she whispered to herself in the present.

"Rey?" Luke called out, in real time, and she finally shook herself free from her reverie. "Are you well? We can-"

"I'm ready, sir," she found herself saying, because wow, she actually kind of was now, "For real this time."

He seemed to pause then, and realize that something was different this time. A small, proud smile graced his face then.

"Assume the position," he commanded, but there was no need, because she'd already done so. She practiced the motion with her left palm as easily as she'd done with her right, feeling much lighter and a lot less...everything.

It wasn't about strength. It was about  _physics._

Without prompt Rey roared.

"Jesus," one of the white belts muttered, unaware she could hear, "she's scary."

"Yeah Rey!" Finn shouted from the audience.

"Go Rey!" Rose joined in, "You can do it!"

Slowly, others started joining in. She could hear the solid powerful claps from Ben, the cheers and crescending hoots from Phasma, and maybe, if she closed her eyes and wished, the faint rumbling of the Falcon and a single mocking voice saying " _Are you just gonna' take that from a stupid rock, Firecracker?"_

She roared again.

"Now or never!" Master Luke shouted, "Show us what you've got Rey! Are you ready to be a black belt?"

"Sir! Yes sir!"

"Go!"

She lifted herself off the balls of her feet one last time, and whatever happened, whether she broke her hand or not, it was definitely her last chance.

She screamed herself hoarse as she descended on the stone, her palm struck out at the exact moment to strike at the surface of the cement and  _did not stop_.

The next time she'd regained awareness she was kneeling, her open palm planted in the platform, one piece of cement lying on top of her fingers, which...she could not feel much except for a vague tingling not dissimilar to sunburn.

There was an explosion going off in her ears then. It took her a second to realize it was everyone else, cheering, congratulating, clapping her on the back, and all around celebrating her absolutely demolishing the previously indestructible block.

Gingerly, she dragged her hand out from the debris, all the while feeling a faint sense of disconnect between herself and the fact that she'd just put her hand through two inches of cement without any visible injury.

Her right hand twinged in protest at this thought.

Standing up was a challenge. There was a strange weightless feeling to her body then, and it was all she could do to stand up without swaying sideways

Master Luke steadied her as she stood. His hands, which once felt like that of a giant, held her shoulders as she seemed a little pale. "Great shot, kid!" Luke said, forgoing his usual masterly attitude for a hug that threatened to squeeze the remaining air from her lungs, "That was one in a million!"

Ten minutes later, after she'd put her new cement pieces in a prepared bag and the area had been swept of any lingering pieces, she was facing Master Luke once more. There was a brand new black belt around her waist and she still didn't know if she was dreaming or not.

"Do you know how many students make it to Black Belt?" he asked. His eyes were awfully moist but he held strong.

"No, Master Luke."

"Neither do I," he joked, and she smiled weakly. Her stomach was churning. "But I do know this, never, and I repeat,  _never_ have I ever met someone as troublesome as you. As obstinate as you."

She swallowed thickly, feeling her own throat start to constrict as he went one. She knew he was playing it up, but it still bypassed every single one of her defenses and shot straight to her heart.

"And as absolutely passionate about Taekwondo as you. You, Rey Kenobi, have shown me today, that you have what it takes to be a black belt. You have demonstrated every single one of the core tenets in your study with me and I am proud to say this: Everyone!" He turned, addressing the lined up students who'd he'd instructed to take a seat. "Stand up!"

They all did so. Even the audience.

"Please join me and welcoming our newest black belt! Rey Kenobi, 1st Dan!"

* * *

Ben had tossed and turned half the night and finally gave up trying to sleep sometime just after 6AM, grumbling to nobody as he shuffled through his immaculate and mostly empty apartment until he made it to the lifesaving little coffee maker that sat on his kitchen counter. Not bothering with sugar or creamer (because after the last twenty-four hours, he needed either caffeine or a lot of liquor), he poured a large mug of black coffee and downed it all in one go, welcoming the way it burned on the way down.

Then he poured another cup. Because it had already been  _that_  kind of morning.

It was Hux's fault, really.

The after party had been held at Maz's of course, because the woman never said no to a chance to celebrate, and Ben had long ago determined that the old hag held more than a soft spot for Rey. He was luck that Rey, still a little dazed and giddy from the day's events, hadn't noticed his awkward and broken responses when she grabbed him by the hand and made him sit down by her side, with Master Skywalker on the other. Conversation hadn't so much as flowed as trickled, but she didn't seem to mind, little maelstrom of happiness that she'd been.

He also didn't mind. Listening to Rey brought about a pleasant buzz that no alcohol could hope to match.

That is, if his brain hadn't kept interjecting with terrifyingly accurate and earth-shaking images of her as she was during her creative poomse.

Walking back, even as a group, had felt a little like walking to the gallows. Rose and Hux had stayed between them, thank God, because suddenly he'd had no idea how to act around her. Even with the others there, it had felt an awful lot like walking a girl home after their first date.

Which was absolutely ridiculous. They'd hung out countless times before.

_It had also been absolutely terrifying._

He worked his way through the second cup, cringing as the inevitable hangover-headache kicked in.

After they'd dropped her off (he'd somehow managed not to kiss her goodnight, and wow, what a miracle  _that_  was, because he'd been unbelievably close), Hux had caught him in some half-trance, practically just loitering around the hallway like he was under some sort of spell-

 _No_ , not a  _damn_   _love spell_ , _shit._

He was losing his mind. That was the only possible explanation. Ben put down the mug and let out what could have been called a hysterical laugh, because  _holy shit_  what else could he possibly be feeling right now but hysteria?

(He'd thought things outside the ring would be  _less_ confusing, not more.)

Hux's reaction had been more subdued. He'd crossed his arms and asked what the hell was up with him, and Ben, being the incredibly eloquent and expressive fool that he was, mostly stumbled through a series of gibbering comments that included "incredible," "beautiful," and "so fucked," before finally settling on a single cohesive word: "Rey."

Hux had just shaken his head and muttered something about getting too old for "high school drama". Of course, Ben's treacherous brain had decided  _that_  comment was hilarious and commenced with the nervous, gutless laughter that was sure to be the perfect solution to all his problems.

(Stick him in a cage with two hulking and viciously scarred martial artists? Sure! No problem! Put him in a room with a pair of doe eyes and he goes to pieces.  _Perfect._ )

Hux had just blinked, looked around to make sure no one had caught that (because as it turned out, Ben had actually said that last bit out loud), forcibly pushed Ben up the stairs and into his apartment, closed the door behind them, and  _then_ proceeded to pour the two of them a series of drinks that somehow made everything just a little bit better.

Even if Hux was a skinny little carrot with more smirk and snark than compassion, Ben was incredibly grateful the man was his neighbor and friend. The man had simply put on a random action-comedy movie he found after five minutes of flicking through Netflix, and kept pouring drinks. He hadn't even asked any questions - he just seemed to  _get it_.

Ben had wanted to hug him. Around five drinks in he actually tried, only to end up knocking his glass of dark alcohol onto one of Hux's incredibly expensive suede couches.

He wasn't entirely sure how he'd made it back to his own apartment, but he had a feeling that Hux had helped, because Ben suspected he would have ended up knocking on Rey's door in the middle of the night if he'd been trusted to get home himself.

And what a situation that would have been - drunkenly showing up at the door of the girl who held his heart in her hands, in the middle of the night?

Ben groaned and took another long drink of his coffee.

A voice in his mind suggested that  _it would have at least leveled the playing field_ , but Ben had a feeling Rey wouldn't have appreciated the sort of things he might have said to her while drunk. Or worse, maybe she would have. So, either she would have  _really_  appreciated them, or he would have gotten slapped.

Ben wasn't entirely sure which would have been worse for their friendship.

He finished the second cup and was halfway through the third when he remembered what his plans were for the day, and suddenly he seriously debated whether or not he should start drinking immediately, or whether he should at least wait until he'd had a chance to get some mixers.

Somewhere in the delirious, vice-like grip of emotional terror he'd fallen into the day before, he'd promised to spend the entire day with Rey. She'd just finished her Black Belt promotion after all, and generally a test like that resulted in a student barely being able to walk the next day. Apparently some part of his brain hadn't been paying much attention, and he'd agreed to hang out with her (read: take care of her) all day.

(His uncle didn't know of course, but Master Skywalker didn't know a lot of things and lately Ben hadn't felt inclined to inform him.)

_Maybe she'd need a massage._

Shit.

His damn libido was suddenly writing checks he had no intention of cashing any time soon, and Ben was less than impressed.

And then there was the overwhelming part of him that wanted nothing more than to spend the day wrapped around her, holding her close, doing nothing more than kissing her softly.

That twined with the paralytic and poisonous mist that had settled under his skin sometime in between the various iterations of the word  _fuck_  was going to make the next twelve hours absolutely delightful. He was not looking forward to alternating between gut-wrenching terror and extreme nervousness while dealing with his affection for the person causing both.

Ben closed his eyes, place both hands on the counter, and tried to recount something -  _anything_ that could help him.

His master's words came to mind.

_Fear has no place in a fight, my student._

_You are stronger than this, Kylo Ren. Stronger than them all._

_You will be great. I will_ make  _you great._

_You have a strong heart, Kylo Ren. Do not let your compassion destroy you._

Ben took a deep breath and struggled to clear his mind before not-so calmly deciding to chill out (as best he could), take a very,  _very_  cold shower, and find something to distract himself for an hour or two before going over to her apartment. The last thing he needed was to start panicking.

His tattoo was starting to itch again...

* * *

Ben managed to at least pretend to be engrossed by some random documentary for an hour before deciding it was late enough to go to Rey's. They hadn't set a time for him to show up, but he knew she'd normally be leaving for class soon, so it was safe to assume she'd be awake, assuming she wasn't more exhausted than he'd expected. Of course, he paced in front of her door for nearly twenty minutes before finally knocking.

It only took her a minute to open the door, and when she did, all the mental preparation he'd done may as well have fallen down a well for all the good it did him.

He used to think the term heart stopping was a trite colloquialism for people to describe their crushes. He was wrong.

Rey answered the door wearing his shirt. For a second he just stared, because it looked like that's  _all_  she was wearing, but once she muttered a sleepy greeting and shuffled to the side to let him in, he noticed she was (thankfully) wearing shorts - the shirt was just long enough to mostly cover them.

"Sorry," she grumbled, yawning and rubbing one eye with the back of her hand, "M'still in pajamas. No coffee yet."

Ben stood outside for a moment, processing what she'd said. All he'd gathered was that she slept in his clothes and that pretty much fried his brain, at least for a moment.

"Are you coming in?" she muttered, halfway to the kitchen.

He took a focused breath in, and exhaled slowly before replying in as normal a voice he could muster, "Yeah, I'll be right there."

He stepped into the apartment, shutting the door behind him. He took a look around, and noted how much more organized it looked than when he'd last visited. They no longer had boxes of random paraphernalia lying around, and in the intervening months someone had finally cleared the floor of all the packing tape and random knick-knacks that the two girls had somehow acquired in the middle of their move. It was surprisingly clean, given what he'd seen of Rey's habits the one time he'd seen her room, and Ben suspected that Rose was much more gung-ho about chores than her roommates was.

"I think Luke designs testing  _specifically_  to kill my leg muscles," Rey complained, finally returning from the kitchen with coffee of her own, and Ben saw that she was having a hard time walking. He also noticed the gauze around her right hand, which held the mug precariously by the handle.

"Uh, here, why don't I help?" he offered, remembering all too well how brutal senior promotions could be. He took her coffee mug, and placed it on the small table by the couch that held her well-worn copy of  _Peace Talks_.

Then he bit the inside of his cheek, rethinking his plan before deciding to just go with it. "C'mere, let me get you to the couch," he said, holding his arms out.

She seemed to figure out his intentions and  _oh_  how part of him wished he hadn't noticed the flattering blush that formed across her cheeks as she put her arms around his neck and let him sweep her up into his arms.

Rey was so light she may as well have been made of...well,  _light_.

_This. This was what he wanted._

He'd missed work for this, his rational mind tried to assert. There wasn't even a word for the kind of trouble he'd be in if his master ever found out why.

"This is a lot easier when you're sober," he joked, desperately trying to lessen the suddenly-ratcheted-up tension in the room. Realistically, there was a limit to how much he could lessen it when every instinct in his body was screaming at him to nuzzle his face into her hair and hold her tight.

Screwed. He was so hopelessly screwed.

He still remembered what her shampoo smelled like.

Rey groaned, seeming completely oblivious to the conflict within him. "I swear, the one time I get drunk and that happens. Never again. Honestly, the only thing I remember is something about Phasma and Hux arguing and-" she paused, and he saw her forehead wrinkle, "Did you not have a shirt on?"

"Oh,  _that_  was the memorable part?"

The words flew out of his mouth before he had the chance to check them by whatever stupid filter he was supposed to have, and Ben took a second to mentally chastise himself before deciding to pass it off as a joke.

He forced himself to chuckle lest she catch on and... _yeah,_  she was bright red.

"Shut up," she muttered. After a moment she cleared her throat and asked, "So, not that I'm complaining, but are you going to put me on the couch, or are we spending the day like this?"

Her hands felt unnaturally warm and soft against his neck, and he knew she'd just spoiled him for any scarf or collar he'd ever wear again.

It was then that he realized he'd picked her up and just never put her down. Ben bit the inside of his cheek -  _again_  - and carried her the dozen or so steps to the couch she could have walked on her own. He didn't miss the way she sighed when she rested her head against his shoulder.

When he arrived at the couch, just before bending down to set her in her usual seat, she spoke up and said casually, "Hm, actually, this is pretty comfortable. Maybe we could just sit like this."

He'd had sucker punches pulled on him that knocked less air out of him.

Was... _was she suggesting he sit down and hold her in his lap?_

Ben froze and let out a nervous bark of laughter, finally saying in a tight, forced tone, "I- Uh, I'm not sure that's a great idea."

"Oh?" she tilted her head to the side. "Why?"

Why? Ben nearly laughed at the question.

_Because you're close, Rey. Closer than I ever should have let you get._

He suspected that was  _not_  the right way to answer the question. There was  _no_  way he could say something like that to her. Instead he smiled tightly, set her down on the couch, and said, "I'd have to move you every time I get up - this way will be more comfortable."

She shrugged, and her eyes did this fluttering thing that sparked a bonfire of too many potentially incendiary thoughts,, and sighed. Then she grabbed a blanket he hadn't noticed from the side of the couch and immediately wrapped herself in a cocoon in one smooth motion.

"Is that my blanket?"

Rey smiled devilishly, but said in a sweet, innocent tone, "I  _did_  say you might not get it back if you brought it over."

"I- how-" he stammered, "I  _swear_  I brought that back home." After a moment of her faux doe-eyed look, he grinned ruefully and said, "You are such a brat sometimes."

"Eh," she said flippantly, winking, "you like it."

Yeah, he really,  _really_ did. But he wasn't going to tell her that. At least not any time soon. Possibly never?

Ben took a seat on the couch next to her, and accepted her generous offer to share  _his_  blanket. The thing was large, even for him, so Rey was absolutely drowning in the fabric before he draped some of it over himself. The apartment was naturally cold, it being the middle of winter, and the apartment being on the first floor, but even with that Ben was in severe danger of overheating form being in such close proximity to Rey.

He cleared his throat before asking, "So, any movies you had in mind? My master gave me the day off, so we can do whatever you want."

She'd gone quiet, and after a moment he glanced over, ready to repeat his question. He noticed that her face had become stoic, and the way she was biting her lip wasn't the cute and alluring way that she normally did.

The drums of apprehension in his head, muted but never gone, began to pick up. He resisted the urge to shift in place.

"Hey, what's up?" he asked. "Everything okay?"

Rey pursed her lips, hesitating. She closed her eyes briefly and took a breath before saying, "Actually, I have some questions for you."

Credit where it was due, Ben did not flinch. That, at least, his master would be proud of. When he replied, he did so cautiously. "Okay, what did you want to ask?"

He watched her take a deep breath, and when she finally looked at him, her eyes, which had once looked up to him with something approaching the same reverence he now felt for her, had now steeled and hardened into something strong and unmoving.

"I want to know the truth," she said flatly. There was fire-forged strength in her bearing, and even sitting down on the couch, Ben could tell she was serious. "Something's going on with you and your job."

"Rey-" he tried to intervene, but she was having none of it.

"Why do you have an extra phone? Why're people referring to you as Kylo Ren?" she demanded.

Just mentioning it seemed to bring to mind the weight in his pants pocket. He'd even taken to forgetting his regular phone in favor of this one, especially with how often his work associates had taken to calling him recently. He'd had more activity on his work phone much more than his previous one.

Swallowing, he wondered if she'd be appeased if he answered some of her questions.

"It's a work phone," he reluctantly admitted, each word heavier than stone for how hard it was to spit out, "My master...he gave it to me a while ago. Whenever he or the other guys need me for something, they know they can call me."

He could tell she wasn't happy with the answer but it was all he was going to give her. It was already more than she needed to know. Even Phasma was curious about his phone nowadays, especially since he'd been missing so many messages from everyone he knew outside of work.

(It wasn't his fault - he was just so busy all the time, especially with his master promising more and more training).

"Then why answer it as Kylo all the time?" Rey asked, reaching across and grabbing his hand. "Why not Ben?"

Ben said nothing, feeling the onset of a familiar pound starting to thrum in his head. Relief and horror intermixed with each other as she kept going.

"You won't give me a straight answer about why you changed your name," she started listing off, "You  _never_  talk about work, and when I ask you get all defensive or vague."

He could tell she was putting a considerable amount of effort into staying calm, and she was carefully monitoring her tone, but that didn't make what she was saying sound less accusatory. Though, considering the explanations she was looking for,  _accusatory_  was an appropriate word. Especially if the wrong people ever learned of the events happening in Tatooine.

"I'm just worried about you, Ben." She said his name with such a flourish it made him flinch. "Luke won't tell me anything either, which is really frustrating because I  _know_  he knows more than I do about it. I know he's doing it to protect me, but I just- I'm  _worried_ about you."

He was in the eye of the storm, and the wall of wind on either side was going to swallow him whole. The apartment had suddenly become unbearably hot, scorching even, and the brief contact of his hand in hers was scalding. He could feel the the sharp quick palpitations of his heart, a feeling he'd once welcomed before every fight but now only threatened to unmake him.

"Ben." Her expression grew cloudy with concern, and she said softly, "Put yourself in my shoes. How would you take it if I was the one hiding things from  _you?_ "

_Like you did already?_

He'd been about to snap at her - to tell her it was none of her business. She'd hidden Unkar Plutt from him - from all of them, really, and part of him wanted to throw it back in her face even if it was spiteful and cruel. It would have almost certainly spelled the end of the day and let him escape, but he couldn't do it.

Still, if Ben had it his way, she'd never have been this involved in the first place. He only knew one thing: he needed to keep Rey as far away from Master Snoke, the  _First Order,_  and Tatooine as was humanly possible.

"It's nothing, Rey," he said, lying through his teeth. A voice reminded him that  _the best lies contain a bit of truth,_  and he continued to explain, "Work just gets really stressful sometimes, and when I'm around you I feel like I can relax. That's why I never talk much about it." He took a deep breath and regretfully, made a promise he had no intention of keeping. "I'll tell you all about it eventually, okay? Just...not today. I don't get a lot of days off and I'd rather spend the day just hanging out with you."

Would he though? Fifteen minutes in and his body was more keyed up than the day he'd first stepped into the cage.

This girl was either going to be his saving grace or the death of him, and he wasn't sure which option was better.

A single look over at her was all he needed to tell that she knew he was lying. She considered him carefully, and gave a slow nod.

"Okay," Rey said finally. "I just hope you know you can tell me anything."

_No, I can't._

"I mean it," she said firmly, "anything. Whatever's going on. Whatever rumors Luke's heard - I promise. It…" she paused, and said quietly, "it won't change how I feel."

 _Yes, it will_.

But that's not what he said. Instead, he smiled softly, took her other hand in his own and squeezed it reassuringly. "I know, sweetheart. But it's nothing to worry about. I don't know what Luke's heard, but it's nothing to worry about."

* * *

"I can't  _believe_  you two talked me into a girl's night."

Phasma realized she hadn't stopped bitching since she'd arrived at the girl's apartment ten minutes earlier, and finally resolved to give the girls a rest. For some reason that still escaped her, Rey and Rose actually tolerated her and may even - God forbid -  _like_ her. It was the least she could to for people who were so woefully incorrect in their assessment of her.

She ignored Rey's smirk and unpacked the bags she'd brought, setting out two board games, a stack of horror movies, and a bunch of various types of junk food.

Ah damn, she'd forgotten to bring the alcohol. Though, considering how Rey got when she had alcohol, maybe it was a good thing.

"You're the one who showed up," Rose laughed as she started ruffling through the stack of horror movies on their coffee table. "And based on what you brought, you aren't new to the concept."

Phasma rolled her eyes. "Believe it or not, I don't really do sleepovers. At least, not ones like this."

"Aww, so painting each other's nails and talking about boys?" Rose mocked. She was a sparky thing for someone so tiny.

Phasma fixed her with a flat look. "If one of you comes near me with a glass of  _Ladylike_  nail polish you'll get a knife hand to the neck. Or, y'know, just a knife."

"Yes ma'am," Rey grinned.

She had to stop herself from giving the girl serious side-eye.

Would it be improper to demand push-ups for the snark?

_Yes. Yes it would be._

"None of that from you," Phasma scolded. "I might be a Master but I think  _yes ma'am_  went out the door when I had to pick you up from a college party." She shook her head and sighed, muttering to herself, "Who knew you'd end up being a troublemaker?"

Rey waved her off and continued working away at her computer when Rose piped up, asking, "No nail polish, we promise. So, what'd you wanna' watch tonight? You're the one who brought all this stuff."

They could just as easily have just streamed something, but Rey had explained that they'd built up something of a tradition of watching purposefully outdated forms of media. As soon as she'd heard this she'd immediately raided the dollar DVD bin of the closest department store.

"Well, Benji clued me in that you two tend to spend girl's nights watching horror rather than romcoms, and I for one, highly approve." She shuffled through the movies she'd brought and handed them over to Rose. "I went with some classics.  _Halloween, Psycho, The Exorcist,_ and  _Night of the Living Dead_."

Rey and Rose both hesitated and met each other's eyes, seeming to have an unspoken conversation. After a moment, Rose turned back to Phasma and said with a faux official tone to her voice, "Okay, you've impressed us. You're officially invited to all future girl's nights."

'You say that like it's a good thing," Phasma said dryly. "You know I'm only here because my original plans fell through, right?"

Rey snorted and decided to fight back. "Sure. Hux was bitching about his work trip pretty loudly He said you had plans for a night at Cafe Noir? Followed by a romantic stroll around the park? It is  _Valentine's_ weekend y'know."

Phasma snorted, even if she wanted to give the girl chops for smack talking back. "You forgot the part where I go back to his apartment and then he wakes me up with the best waffles on the planet."

Both girls went quiet.

"What?" She looked between the two of them, and laughed. "Oh I'm sorry, I thought I was speaking to a pair of adults, not two blushing virgins. Here let me make it clearer - Hux and I were going to go back to his apartment. He was going to put on some music, and then he was going to put that smart mouth of his to good use. Why on earth do you think I keep him around?"

She gave them a moment and then she laughed at the look on their faces. Rose just looked highly entertained, but Rey was blushing.

"You two are ridiculous." She took a look over at Rey, who was now studiously avoiding her eyes and working diligently at her computer. "Really? Homework? During a sleepover. One that  _you_  invited me for?"

"Mmm, not really."

Phasma's eyes narrowed, not missing the coy smile on Rey's face.

"She won't tell me either," Rose shrugged, taking a spot on the single lounge chair they had. The thing was massive, so big as to be gaudy even, but damn if she didn't look comfortable in it.

"Well, now I'm curious," Phasma said, raising an eyebrow. "What're you up to cupcake?"

Rey muttered something incoherent before ducking her head and continuing to work on her computer, doubling Phasma's curiosity. "It's nothing."

"I'm sure it is," Phasma remarked nonchalantly, "that's why you're so red, right?"

After a minute of them staring expectantly at her, Rey finally rolled her eyes, looked up from her computer, and said, "It's really nothing. Ben was driving me home the other day since the Falcon's in the shop and I gave him shit for the music he had on, so he said I should make a CD for when I'm in the car - that way he doesn't have to hear me complain about it."

 _Of course_  it involved Ben. She should have guessed.

The small smile on Phasma's face grew into a wide, encompassing smirk. "You're making him a  _mixtape?"_

"It's not like that," Rey muttered. "I'm just trying to get him to listen to something that isn't Linkin Park or Three Days Grace."

"Hey now, don't knock those bands," Phasma scolded playfully. "But uh, what songs are you putting on this CD?"

"Just...stuff," Rey shrugged in a way that was probably meant to be casual but was indicative of anything but. _Oh_ , this little cinnamon roll was sometimes too sweet for Phasma to bear, but sometimes, there was potential for some prime mayhem.

_Stuff._

Suddenly a plan formed in Phasma's mind, and a small part of her wanted to cackle. Instead she just nodded, and decided to seem uninterested.

"That's nice of you," she said kindly. "I'm sure he'll appreciate it." Phasma turned back to Rose and said, "I wasn't sure what you'd both want, so I got a mix - chips, salsa, oreos...I forgot to bring the vodka but I figured I shouldn't encourage it since you two seem to be perfectly capable of getting into trouble on your own."

Rey seemed relieved that the conversation had changed, and Phasma  _almost_  felt bad.

 _Almost_.

She needed to get Rey away from the laptop. At least for a few minutes.

"I was thinking - we could order takeout from Maz for dinner," she suggested, meeting Rose's eyes and winking. "I know she doesn't deliver, but one of us could pick it up while the other two pick out a movie and get plates out and everything."

Rose's eyebrow went up when she saw Phasma wink, but nevertheless she seemed to perk up. "That sounds perfect! Maz's is the best. I'd pick up but I don't have a car."

"I can do it," Rey offered. "Plus, I need to see what my schedule is for next week anyway. Just let me know what you two want and I'll pick it up."

_Perfect._

"That's great," Phasma said casually. "Just get me whatever you usually get. I've yet to have a meal from that woman that wasn't fantastic."

Rey nodded knowingly, stood to put a light jacket on and  _oh the sweet, trusting girl left her laptop open_.

This was going astoundingly well.

* * *

Less than two minutes after Rey left, Phasma plopped into the girl's chair and looked through the playlist she'd put together to burn. Phasma had to admit, Rey had already done an exceptional job at accomplishing what she had in mind, but there was still some room for improvement.

"What are you doing on Rey's laptop?"

Phasma glanced up to find Rose frowning at her, hands on her hips. She was a petite little thing, and any other time Phasma would have cooed and called her attempt at intimidation precious. Except, surprise surprise, she'd actually found herself liking these girls.

_These sweet innocent girls who just left their laptops out for whoever to mess with._

Really. She was going Rey a favor. She'd thank her afterwards.

"Oh, nothing," Phasma shrugged. "Just making a quick change to this playlist."

Rose had taken another step forward and Phasma felt a serpentine smile form on her face as she found the  _perfect_  song in Rey's library.

"What  _kind_  of change?" Rose asked, wringing her hands.

Honestly, if she weren't committed to her snarky sarcastic ass of a boyfriend, she'd have gobbled Rose right up. She still might, if she kept up the protective friend schtick. It was just too cute to be intimidating. She wondered how Hux would feel about the idea sometime.

He'd probably turn that delightful shade of pink he did whenever he got embarrassed and then stammer for five minutes before she shut him up. With her mouth.

Deciding to put that idea in her back pocket for later, she looked up at Rose from behind the screen. Damn, this laptop was a piece of crap. The little muffin needed to get a new one stat, because this thing was definitely going the way of the dodo.

"Oh you know, just switching a song, editing a file name." Phasma let out a hum of pleasure when she saw the name change finally take. "No big deal. Rey probably won't even notice. Actually, I'm counting on her  _not_  noticing."

Rose's jaw dropped. "What song are you adding?"

She sounded hopeful. It was too sweet, really, because it meant that she'd definitely thought better of Phasma before now, and part of her was delighted to disprove that notion.

"One that'll get Ben's attention, that's for sure." Phasma snorted, thinking of the tall idiot. He'd started avoiding her lately, and through talking with Hux it had been revealed that the gigantic tool was skimping out on bro time with him too. This was as much helping Rey as it was payback on him. He'd have a heart-attack when this song played. "He doesn't seem like he'd be a Lana Del Rey fan, but I think he'll appreciate this one. Here, let me play it for you."

By the first line, Rose looked horrified.

Perfect.

"No," Rose gasped, actually putting her hand to her mouth in a  _dear me_  motion. "Phasma that's a  _terrible_ idea!"

It was faint, but Phasma could see the edge of her lips start to quirk upwards, fighting an involuntary smile.

"I think it's brilliant, actually," she smirked. "Come on, those two are completely into each other and you know it. I can't even remember the last time I saw him check out anyone other than her, and we both know she's wanted him since basically forever." She brought her fingers together and held them an inch apart. "They just need a little push."

"That song is a bit more than a  _little push_ , don't you think?" True worry was actually seeping into Rose's voice as she spoke up, even as she'd sat back down. She was leaning in, her voice falling to a conspirators hush as if there were anyone else around to listen in. "What do you think's going to happen if he hears this?"

Phasma sighed and turned to face the girl, saying plainly, "I will literally pay you to forget you saw me do this."

After a moment of consideration, Rose's eyes narrowed.

"Don't think I won't throw you under the bus if this blows up in our faces."

Ah, so there  _was_  a bit of bite underneath that sweet face of hers.

Phasma winced as she moved the rapidly overheating machine from one side of her lap to the other. "I'd expect nothing less."

Rose pulled a seat out from the table and sat across from Phasma, studying her curiously. It was the intensity of the stare that clued Phasma in that suddenly they were in  _Serious Talk_  territory. She resisted the urge to groan, partly because she'd more or less signed herself up for this by crashing Friday night with these two in particular, and because somehow, in the course of these fifteen minutes, Phasma found herself actually liking the girl.

"I know you're one of his friends, so I'm not trying to be rude, but-" Rose seemed hesitant to spit this out, but Phasma could take a guess as to what she was getting at."Do you really think it's a good idea for them to be together?"

Phasma watched her, turning over the question in her mind. Truth be told, Ben had been pissing her off more and more recently and she personally thought the guy needed to keep his "Call me Kylo" meter about three dozen levels below what it was currently at. That said, she did still consider him a good friend. Just one in need of a serious kick in the balls.

"I'm guessing," she replied slowly, "that you have a poor opinion of Ben because you've seen him be all protective and angry, and you saw how hurt Rey was after he pushed her away? Y'know, when he found out how she felt?"

Rose snorted.

"That's some revisionist storytelling right there, Phasma. I think you mean, did I hear him threaten to break my friend's arms? In front of everyone  _except_  Rey?" Rose asked dryly. "And did I hear that he basically abandoned her out in the middle of nowhere after breaking her heart? In the middle of the rain? Yeah. I did."

Ah right, she'd forgotten about that. Phasma did not wince because that would have been admitting defeat and that was something she never did.

"First of all, I had more than a few words with Ben about how he handled the Liam situation-"

"He was really afraid, Phasma," Rose interjected, looking more than a little spooked. "Like, he never hung out with us again after that. And Ben was...scary."

 _Dammit, Solo._  Phasma cursed to herself, because she couldn't believe she was doing this for a guy who'd been blowing her and Hux off for weeks now.

"I'm not saying it's wasn't completely inappropriate, ok? I made sure he knew that." Phasma shrugged, and tried to change the topic, both because of how unimaginably pissed she got remembering Ben's cocksure attitude, and because she wanted to get back to enjoying herself. "As for that mess with that night in the rain? What was he supposed to do, pick her up, and put her in the car?"

"He should have made sure she'd called someone."

How was it she'd gotten into an argument with someone she'd completely agreed on every point with?

"Look, I don't mean to defend the guy," Phasma continued. "I think we both know he can be a complete idiot who makes bad decisions sometimes. But I've known him a long time, and I think you're focusing too much on how they behave as individuals. Think about the times you've seen them together lately. What are they like then?"

Rose frowned and seemed to think about it for a second or two before sighing, and admitting, "Happier. Calmer. They're both less angry."

"Exactly," Phasma nodded. "Don't get me wrong, they can each be perfectly happy without the other, and that's very important - but when they're together…" she smiled fondly, "it's like they forget anyone else is in the room, and it's like someone's permanently sewn smiles on their faces. It's kind of sweet. And sickening. A little more of the latter, if you ask me."

Phasma's mind could only remark that it was no wonder that Hux, the man with the interminably obnoxious case of perma-snark, was the romantic one between the two of them.

"I'm still not sure I trust him," Rose grumbled. "A person shouldn't have to be with someone else just to be a reasonable human being."

Phasma looked over at her, and saw some of that same worry she'd seen in the mirror on a different face. When she next spoke it was less kind, and more mindful, "I can see why. But you don't have to trust him. Trust Rey. She's a smart girl and something tells me she won't put up with any shit from him."

 _And trust me too,_ Phasma thought,  _because so help me, if Solo doesn't get his act together soon he's going to find himself on the wrong end of my boot._ The jackass had completely been avoiding her calls, even on his fancy work phone that Snoke had insisted on bringing with him everywhere.

"You know, you aren't so bad," the younger girl said softly, after a few seconds of comfortable silence.

Phasma blinked, and found herself chuckling, if a little darkly, "Do I give off some sort of terrible impression? Why are you and your friends always saying things like that?" It probably didn't help that Phasma purposefully cultivated that kind of impression among those she was introduced to, but lately people kept attaching themselves to her. First Hux comes back in her life and now  _this?_

"You're kind of scary!"

"Scary?!"

"Yes, scary!"

"You're ridiculous. You want scary, you should see  _my_  Master."

Rose hesitated, and glanced up at the woman. "Yeah, about him. Rey's said some things…"

"Ah," Phasma said blandly, seeing the hook for what it was, "Not tonight,  _please_. I've worked enough this week - tonight, despite my instinct to flee, is a girl's night. No shop talk. Plus, we have a movie to pick."

She watched as Rose debated whether or not to drop it, and breathed a quiet sigh of relief when she finally replied, "I'm thinking we should start with  _Psycho._  That seems like an appropriate way to welcome you to your first girl's night."

Wow. Bitch.

Phasma let out a sharp, barking laugh. "Well." She snorted, and gave the girl a playful stink-eye. "Eh, I've been called worse."

"I know you have," Rose shot back, smirking, "Hux mutters to himself in the halls."

Phasma choked and rightfully decided to upgrade Rose's mental classification from sweet chocolate chip cookie to something with a little more bite to it.

Minutes later, the apartment door opened, and Rey walked in, followed by  _Ben_ , who was carrying their dinner order.

"Hey, look who I ran into at the diner," she said, pointing back at him as if they couldn't see the tall looming pack mule taking up the whole entrance.

Ben smiled, and after a moment his eyes landed on Phasma, and he chuckled. "So they really did rope you into a sleepover, huh? I never thought I'd see this day."

"Shut it, Benji."

His smirk was just a little forced and for a moment she thought he was going to shoot back with his now customary, "Call me Kylo." But Phasma didn't miss the way his eyes flitted over to Rey's presence before he replied, smoothly and with only a hint of sarcasm, "Yes, ma'am."

It was one of the only times she'd ever heard him say that. Snoke didn't let her and Ben train together very often when she was in the gym, and when he did it was never with Phasma in the traditionally superior role. Rather, it was usually more as part of a general workout.

"I swear," she groused, wishing more and more that she'd brought alcohol - ethics be damned, "the next one of you who calls me ma'am outside of Taekwondo is doing push-ups."

She wasn't going to ream into him for avoiding her and Hux recently. Not with Rey and Rose right there.

Ben put the food down and held up his hands in surrender. He turned back to Rey, and even Phasma could see that he was nearly beaming at her. "Alright sweetheart, I should go. I'd hate to risk getting invited to girl's night."

"Yeah, you definitely aren't on the guest list," Rey teased.

Phasma sighed contentedly, watching them. The two idiots just stood in front of the still-open door, close enough for a hug, or possibly, a kiss, acting as though it might kill them if they said goodbye for the night.

She cleared her throat, mostly to see if they'd even notice that her and Rose were still watching them silently stare at each other like lovesick fools. They did, in fact, notice, and both turned a bit red, looking away from each other bashfully.

"So, uh, I should probably go," Ben said awkwardly.

Rey was the one to break the tension, thank  _God_ , and pulled him in for a hug that lasted at least twice as long as most would. And judging from the way her arm flexed, probably copped a nice feel of his back muscles while she was at it.

Phasma turned her attention to the food, a little tired of the drama already, but as she carried it into the kitchen she could have sworn she heard Ben say - at a volume level he most definitely didn't expect anyone other than Rey to hear, " _Goodnight starlight."_

* * *

The first thing that Hux had noticed when he stepped into Ben's car was that it was clean. Unnaturally so. Hux kept his glances and observations casual as Ben drove away from the airport, but all the same, it felt more like he'd just walked into a mortuary than a vehicle. The car smelled...sterile. Empty.

That was something that wouldn't have been astounding to a normal person, if it weren't for the fact that Hux had been in this exact car not even a week ago, and while he wouldn't have called Ben disorganized, it hadn't been spotless. There'd been an accidentally stolen pen here, some change for tolls in the cup holders there. Now it was bereft of even that.

He was lucky it was cold outside, and that Ben had a bad habit of leaving the heat as low as possible, because the goosebumps and shivers he felt would have drawn more questions than he felt explaining.

Instead, he opened his friend's glove compartment, and  _A-ha_ , there was that bit of humanity he was missing. He grabbed a stack of CD's into his lap, making idle chatter with Ben as he navigated his way onto the freeway. The airport was in Corellia, a good two hours away from Coruscant, so they had time to kill.

Hux was just glad he hadn't had to pay parking for the stupid work mandated trip for the last week.

Hux rifled through the CDs in Ben's car, grumbling that the idiot  _still_  hadn't moved his music onto his phone when he came across a burned CD, noticed the handwriting on the cover, and grinned devilishly. Suddenly the ride back seemed a lot less dreary and a whole lot more entertaining. Even better, it was at Ben's expense,  _of course._  In the years of being roommates, neighbors, and consequently friends with Ben Solo, entertainment at his expense was the best kind around.

"Oh  _Ben,_  she made you a mixtape? Isn't that 'we're dating' in high-schooler language?"

Ben came to a red light and took the opportunity to shoot a baleful glare at him. "First, she's in college. Second, we're not dating and you know that. She gave me shit for my taste in music and I told her to make a CD. It's just so she won't keep complaining about my music whenever we go somewhere."

Hux smirked and popped in it, suddenly extremely curious to see what songs Rey had picked out. It took him a moment to place the voice, but the lyrics were immediately recognizable, especially since Phasma had dragged him to see the movie three times in one weekend when it was released.

> " _You know I want you, it's not a secret I try to hide.  
>  I know you want me, so don't keep saying our hands are tied-"_

He let out a snort, and crossed his arms, staring expectantly over at Ben, who was obviously fidgeting anxiously in his seat. Maybe it made Hux a bad friend, but seeing him squirm was  _so_ satisfying. After getting ditched one too many times in the past few weeks by Ben - with the one time they'd actually met up in person being Rey's black belt promotion, because of course he wasn't going to miss that - Hux was feeling only a smidgen vindictive.

"So she likes musicals," Ben finally said, after a minute of lyrical and poetic verse coming through the speakers. "That doesn't prove anything."

 _A likely story._ But Hux knew better. Ben had gotten so drunk the night after the girl's promotion he'd tried to  _hug him_  for God's sake. Obviously there was a lot he wasn't admitting.  _Yet._

"I'm sure you're right," Hux nodded, and even patted Ben's knee consolingly to emphasize his point on how he so totally believed that load of crap.

"It doesn't!" Ben protested.

He rolled his eyes and groaned, "My God, man, come on. Just admit it. She's obviously completely in love with you and you  _know_  I know it's at least sort of mutual. After all, you  _are_  listening to showtunes for this girl-"

"Hux," he interrupted, "would you kindly shut the hell up?"

_Not a chance._

Violent politeness wasn't Ben's usual MO, but Hux could see the effect everything was having on the man. It felt good to catch up with the idiot, even if Hux felt a little bad about twisting the man into more knots than he was already in.

"Oh, this is priceless. Let's see what else Rey put on here."

He flipped the CD case over and noticed the list she had written out. (Hux was amused to note the little signature at the bottom, including the oh so  _friendly_  sign-off of " _Love, Rey"_ ). "Oooh, Fleetwood Mac? Kind of old school, but I can appreciate it. I'm sure the song she picked isn't a romantic one," he said sarcastically, "after all, they have plenty of non-romantic songs."

He skipped forward a bit on the CD.

> " _Can you hear me calling out your name?_
> 
> _You know that I'm falling and I don't know what to say._
> 
> _I'll speak a little louder, I'll even shout._
> 
> _You know that I'm proud and I can't get the words out._
> 
> _Oh I, I want to be with you everywhere."_

Hux pretended to hum thoughtfully. "Oh yeah, you're completely right, that's one-hundred percent platon-"

"Hux!" Ben snapped, having turned a deep shade of red, "either shut up or I'll pull over and you can get out of the car."

_He probably wasn't kidding._

"Okay, okay," Hux said, holding his hands up, relenting. "You win. We'll just keep pretending that neither of you have feelings."

"Seriously, do you have a deathwish?"

"Mm, testy, huh?" Hux snorted. He rolled his eyes, but shut up, knowing full-well that pushing Ben too far wasn't a great idea. They sat awkwardly while the song finished.

A few seconds of silence later a Lana Del Rey song started playing, just as they were about to get on the highway. Instead of going on, Ben pulled over to the side and put the car into a kind of rolling stop Hux knew would get them fined if any cop happened to pass by. Ben didn't seem to mind that possibility and instead, groaned and let his forehead smack against the steering wheel while muttering a few choice words.

When the opening lyric rang out, Hux knew immediately that he'd have to slap a hand over his mouth to keep from bursting out laughing. "Oh my  _God,_ " he finally breathed, "Was she drunk when she made this? She  _had to_ have been drunk. Right?"

If he thought Ben was blushing before, he'd been wrong. After a moment and a deep breath, Ben swallowed hard and admitted with a nervous chuckle, "I really don't know. I mean...she's not really the type to be that forward otherwise, is she?"

Ben let out a breathy and bitter chuckle as the song played. As the song went on, their amused snorts turned into chortles and then full-blown, pound-on-the-dashboard barking laughter. The whole situation seemed patently ridiculous and somehow, Hux knew that Phasma had a hand in it. It was just the right brand of wicked mixed in with her own flavor of helpfulness as well. As the song died down, Ben looked at his side mirror and started rolling forward, eventually pulling into the rightmost lane of traffic.

"So," Ben said, gasping to catch his breath, "I'm guessing I can't convince you not to read into that song choice?"

"Not a chance," Hux shook his head. "I think any chance of this CD being platonic went out the window with the line about  _pussy_. And, aren't half of this woman's songs about having a daddy kink?" Hux shook his head in surprise, "I still can't believe she put that on here."

He watched his friend smack a hand to his face and moan. "What the hell do I do, Hux?"

The laughter left Hux's face as he considered his friend carefully. "Well, crushes don't tend to last for  _years_ , Ben. I think we both know it's a lot more than that. And, y'know, she's a bit older, now. I'm just saying, if you have feelings for her, none of us would judge you."

Ben sighed deeply, and responded, "It...it wouldn't be weird?"

A small smile grew on Hux's face as he replied, "Maybe a little? Honestly, man, I have no right to be casting stones for being weird. I mean, remember how me and Phasma met?"

Ben winced. "Fair enough."

"Just... _holy shit,_  don't let her make you any more CDs."

Ben chuckled in response and eventually the fell into a lull when some good, non-romantic music came on. Half an hour into the trip, and Hux was starting to doze off, creepily immaculate car interior or no. Jetlag was more of a bitch than Phasma, and that was saying something.

"Don't let her hear you say that," Ben mused, and Hux realized he'd said that last part out loud.

There were clouds on the horizon, Hux's sleep-deprived brain couldn't help but note. Big swirling, ominous things.

Another fifteen minutes in, right when he was about to fully pass out, Hux was stopped by Ben asking, "Hey Hux, you awake?"

_No, I'm not you bastard. I'm dead. I died in your car and now you have a corpse riding alongside you._

"Jackass," Ben said with a note of fondness, and once again Hux realized his mouth was moving without him noticing.

"What is it, Ben?" Hux muttered, resigning himself to a few more minutes of wakefulness.

"Call me Kylo, man, I keep telling you," Ben admonished, but there was no heat to his words any more, it was like something had just...drained it out of him, "I- I've gotta' tell you something. It's about work."

Despite his bleary eyes, Hux perked up and sat up straighter. Ben was more reclusive about his mysterious gym than Phasma had ever been, so to hear those words meant it was important.

"Lay it on me, then,  _Kylo_ ," Hux injected a bit too much of a sneer into that name, "What's so important you gotta' tell me right when I'm about to fall asleep?"

And then Ben did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: An injury, a set-back, and motherly advice.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> Attack: I hope you all liked the fluff we got with this chapter. Also, I hope you all love Phasma and Hux as much as we do.
> 
> Onfire: On Rose and Phasma talking: honestly, I'm with Rose on this one. Ben's a complete mess right now, and he's being very scary to a lot of people. He's avoiding his friends, ignoring messages from people who care about him, and he's demonstrated a violent attitude in public not just once but multiple times. Snoke is this weirdly ethereal man who looms over Phasma and Ben's life, but he's got this kind of personal hold on Ben that almost seems toxic. At least, that's how I hope it's coming across. If not, and if people are confused, please let us know! There's only so much suspense that can be had before it detracts from a story and instead adds to it.
> 
> Hux and Phasma are great and I think Atttack and I realized that Phasma and Hux are at least unintentionally minor reflections of she and I. Take that as you will.
> 
> Here's the link if you want to check out the full playlist for [Rey's Mixtape](https://open.spotify.com/user/d7cbxiw34w0rjlgfm1uqnc9l5/playlist/3l9P9UcHbeRACCRLLyATAX?si=KTfcwgpTRhC0Y0iOnSDpcQ)!
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	33. Black Belt, First Stripe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit, meet fan.
> 
> Please note the rating change. There’s a good amount of violence over the upcoming arc and we’ve decided to play it safe and up the rating. It was going to get bumped to E eventually anyway, so we’re just doing it a bit earlier than planned.
> 
> There are no songs mentioned in-text, but I’d suggest checking out “Dig Your Grave” and “Trouble” as they both set the tone for the scenes our playlist mentions.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


The melting showers of March and invasion of April's, complete with resplendent greens and miserable grey skies, brought about a different kind of uncomfortable truth for Ben: His hands now ached when it rained. It had come as a nasty surprise one morning, and he'd thought that he'd finally damaged himself permanently-

 _If only_  his jaded side had remarked.

-but it turned out to be a side-effect of the injuries he'd gotten back in November, after he'd found out about Han's records. It was like someone had splinted every joint in his hands, while pinching his bones every few minutes or so. Nothing he couldn't handle, but it made packing things in the perpetually drizzling weather of the last few weeks slower than usual.

Despite how sparse his apartment had become, Ben still had a considerable amount of packing to do, and he realized just half an hour into the task that if he wanted to finish on time, he should have asked for help. Of course doing that would have meant more people would start asking questions, and he was reasonably sure his master would be disappointed to hear he'd needed help with something so simple.

He'd barely even told Hux about the move, and that had been hard enough. Telling him during a two-hour car ride had been a mistake. Ben had barely finished spitting out the first sentence before the other man had started bombarding him with questions. It didn't help that Ben couldn't answer most of them.

Ben had filled two boxes before he started packing up the living room, and he only paused at the small dark wood frame that sat on his coffee table. He picked it up and sighed.

The picture had been taken years earlier by his mother. It had been a gift from that one Christmas they'd spent together, and in the picture, Rey was beaming, just having promoted to Blue Belt. Her idiot boyfriend had ditched the promotion before it ended, not having enough respect to stick around to meet Master Skywalker, or even congratulate her as she received a new belt.

Ben snorted. That kid had been in need of a serious ass-kicking every single time they'd met. He was just glad Rey hadn't heard been around the last time he'd nearly lost his cool around him.

At the time, Rey hadn't seemed to mind Liam skiving off. Or maybe she had and he just hadn't been able to read her well at the time. She had seemed annoyed for a moment, but then she'd turned and grinned at Ben while he scolded her for tying her belt unevenly. That's when Leia had snapped the picture.

Seeing the photo, years later, he wondered how he'd ever missed the way she used to look at him. Before he left. Before she'd heard the name  _Kylo Ren_.

A knock at the door shook him out of his thoughts, and he placed the frame back onto the coffee table. He shuffled through the various stacks of boxes to the door and threw it open, hoping at the last minute that it wasn't Rey, or someone else who'd immediately demand to know why he was packing.

The tall blonde who stood in front of him when he opened the door wore a smile full of hellfire and had a look in her eyes that promised retribution.

"Hi, jackass," she said, in as saccharine a tone as poisoned honey. Then, before Ben's instincts kicked in, her fist connected with his face.

The face was still one of the few places he wasn't used to getting hit in. Bruises there were a  _lot_ harder to hide than anywhere else, and he'd put special effort in to avoid those whenever it was his turn in the cage. So when the straight reverse punch came, all he could think of was how that was going to leave a mark.

And a lot of blood.

He steadied himself by grabbing the side of his futon, and found himself facing a still pissed off blonde. "Phasma, what the fuck?!"

"Yeah, that's a princess cut," she snapped, pushing her way into the apartment, "and I hope it hurt, you  _asshole._ "

His eyes stung as the slice she'd made in his cheek began to burn like a low dull flame. He could feel the blood start to trail down his neck and soak into his shirt collar.

Ben scrambled to find the nearest roll of paper towels or towel, and groaned before he decided to take off his shirt and use it to stop the bleeding. His head was starting to pound already, like one of his master's preferred drum beats, and somehow he just knew that was going to be the least of his worries.

"Phas, why the  _fuck_  did you just punch me? Fuck, that hurt." He hissed as he balled up his now ruined shirt and dabbed it at the not-inconsiderable cut in his cheek. "Why would you punch me me with a ring on? You don't even wear rings!"

"It's an engagement ring, you utter jagweed," she spat, advancing on him even as he focused on stopping the flow before it got to the rest of him. "And you'd know that if you weren't such a dick."

"What? You're engaged?" he said, still a little dazed, "Since when?"

"About a month ago." There was something raw and terribly angry behind those words. "Remember all those dinners you've been skipping out on?"

Ben winced even as the comforting warmth of confrontation started building up in his stomach. He tried to keep his tone civil as he replied with his default. "I've been busy."

"Fuck you and your arrogant ass,  _Kylo_ ," Phasma sneered, "We've been trying to get a hold of you forever. I thought we were finally going to get a chance when you agreed to meet to but then you fucking stood us up."

Ben bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from spitting out more than she needed to know. Phasma was one of the few people who had some idea of what  _The First Order_  was like, but like his master said, she was too important to know everything. "I'm sorry," he said, and was surprised to find that he truly was. "Something came up. My-  _our_  master needed help sorting some things out."

Her nostrils flared, as if she didn't believe him. "What things?"

He swallowed and looked away, feeling the spite and tar threaten to spill over in his stomach. "Things."

She glared at him, and for a minute he considered making a run for it because  _shit_  Phasma knew how to throw a punch. He didn't know what he'd do if she tried again, and he was terrified to find out. But then, miracle of miracles, her expression softened. It was an ice cube's difference amongst a glacier of righteous fury, but Ben still saw it. Her jaw unclenched and stance loosened, before she drew to her full height and met his gaze.

"What's going on?" she spoke, not softly, because nothing about Phasma was ever soft, but there was an undercurrent of genuine concern there that surprised Ben. "Hux said you told him you're breaking your lease. Why?"

"Technically," Ben pointed out, because technicalities were some of his only escape routes now, "I'm just not renewing it."

"That is some basic bullshit, right there, Solo," Phasma growled. "And answer the damn question."

Outside, the routine crackle-boom of thunder from the past few weeks reverberated and seemed to shake his apartment. If Ben closed his eyes, he could almost imagine being there, away from this disaster. His tattoo had been burning a hole in his back all morning, and it had only intensified once he exposed it to hot humid air. Something ugly and shackled and  _hungry_  prowled in the back of his mind.

 _Breathe. Remember your training,_ said a voice that sounded suspiciously like Master Skywalker's.

But when he tried all he could remember was the rabbit punch from last session, when he'd thought the round over, and the crimson haze that followed. His master had been awfully pleased afterwards.

"I'm moving to Mandalore," he finally answered, and if his voice had turned harsh well, she was the one who drew first blood. "It's about time."

Phasma blinked, and seemed to repeat his last words to herself before saying, "Time for what?"

"Our master thinks it's time for me to move to Mandalore," he repeated as calmly as he could manage. "He's working on living arrangements for me and some of the guys. You know how much business we've been getting lately."

She actually didn't. Not fully. Phasma spent as much time at the gym as any regular person would at a job. She helped the rubes with exercise routines, and taught some classes, but she didn't eat, sleep, and breathe  _real_  martial arts like Ben and the rest did. She also didn't know enough about business to understand the disturbing growth rate of the First Order's funds in recent years couldn't have been from just people off the street. Ben did.

It was what prompted him to ask his master about the source, and what had eventually led to...everything.

Phasma took a moment to look around the apartment. She took an unnecessarily long time to take in all the empty walls and surface, and she paused when she came to the bookshelf, which now stood bare next to a box labeled "Donation" that was filled to the brim with books.

She walked over and picked one up. It was his copy of  _Peace Talks_. "What? You going to become a monk or something? Can't even have fucking books where you're going?"

"I just..." Ben struggled to put a word to what he was feeling, "I just don't need the distractions."

Phasma's response was a single arched brow. "Distractions," she drawled, "Yes. I can see how loud, noisy books are distractions."

The venom that had been bubbling down to a low simmer threatened to boil over in an instant. Somehow, he kept his first reflexive response under control.

"What else are you hoping to run away from, Benji?" Phasma snarled, suddenly vitriolic and ardent frost once more, "What other  _distractions_  do you have in your life?"

The thing inside him seemed to salivate at the chance to finally be let loose. She wanted honesty? Fine. Let her have some.

"Friends," he offered, his voice eerily calm as the fog began to fall over his mind, "Everything with Master Skywalker, too. But mostly…" he paused, and wondered how to phrase this next part for maximum impact. "The personal attachments. The unnecessary crap. The-"

"The fact that you have no clue how to handle your feelings like a fucking adult?" Phasma swore, stepping in closer. Her pale cheeks were blotched with red blemishes. "Dammit, Ben-"

"Don't call me that!" he exploded at her. His voice bellowed and seemed to shake her. Something precious and treasured broke inside him. Then and there, he decided, he  _hated_  her. "Call me Kylo."

She seemed to suck in a breath.

"What. The.  _Fuck,"_ she breathed. "Are you hearing yourself right now?"

He was. Ben had nothing but his thoughts to occupy himself at the best of times.

He tried (and mostly failed) to keep his tone neutral and devoid of feeling as he replied, "I'm not sure what you mean."

Her eyes flashed with incandescent rage. "That's some serious cult-y bullshit you're talking. Are you fucking with me right now? Is this a joke? Because if so, well done, but it's time to stop."

"It's not a joke, Phasma," he said coldly. "It's what our master wants."

He looked beyond her, and noticed the door to the apartment was still ajar. Cursing, he swept by her, suddenly desperate to close it. He didn't need anyone else in the building to know of this conversation. Especially a certain someone two floors down.

His instincts warred within him as he passed by Phasma, telling him not to turn his back on a potential threat, but, just this once, he didn't listen. His gaze ducked low and avoided hers, and then he made it to the door and clicked it shut.

She gasped.

"What the hell is on your back?"

Ben turned in place, confused. "What're you talking about?"

"Don't- don't hide it!" She pointed at his shoulder, "On your back? Between your shoulders."

The corners of his lips quirked upwards, darkly amused. "It's a tattoo, Phasma. What? You going to get on my case ab-?"

"That's  _not_  a tattoo," she cut in, "That's a fucking brand!"

A cynical jeer escaped him before he could even think to filter it. Charcoal was burning in his chest and he was choking on the smoke, and all he wanted for her to leave. "It's a tattoo, Phas," and there was something hateful and jaded in his voice as he said her nickname, "Just drop it."

He turned to pick up an empty box he'd left by the side of the door. He immediately heard her stomp across the floor to get closer.

When she did, Phasma gasped again and asked, "Is that-  _holy shit_ , is that the  _First Order_  insignia?"

He swirled around around and took a retreating step against the sidewall. His shoulder blades itched like crazy and it was taking every ounce of self-control to not lash out.

"Get out," he said, flatly. He gestured to the door with his thumb.

There wasn't any point in coddling her, or answering her questions. Phasma was just going to end up hating him anyway, if she didn't already, so what was the point?

"Leave," he said once again. " _Now."_

She stepped in close. There was shattered glass in her stare and her voice was barely above a cool night's whisper, "How  _dare_  you give me an order."

Ben said nothing, and met her fire with his cloud of ash.

"You're going to tell me what's going on right now, you son of a bitch. He might be a master, but so am I, and you're going to fucking respect me when I ask you a question."

It was funny, how she thought she had any power over him. Ben took a single mountainous breath and finished with a poisonous chuckle that said everything he could ever say.

"You might be a master," Ben murmured. "But you're not  _my_  master."

Phasma's eyes widened, and after a moment she gave him a short nod, turned on her heel, and slammed his apartment door behind her on the way out.

* * *

May cut into Rey's life like a discontent soccer mom in a packed minivan on the highway, and she knew immediately that there had to be something wrong with her, because that description just shouldn't have made as much sense as it did. Finals were upon her, and she'd been struggling. Apparently her hardass professors had found her writing to be too "free-form" (whatever that meant), and she'd had to reorganize her entire portfolio with frantic energy, spending late nights and every weekend filling herself to the brim with caffeine. The best she'd managed were half-intelligible ramblings of the somnambulant.

At some point, probably around the second week of all the insanity, she'd discovered that Rose had brought home a cat. Either that, or the little orange ball of fluff (lovingly named Bee-bee, apparently) had been there the whole time and Rey had completely lost her mind. Either scenario was plausible.

And since she needed  _more_  going on, Luke had started giving her more responsibility in the Dojang, so she'd been spending more time working with the lower belts. She wasn't entirely sure why he thought  _that_  was a good idea (it wasn't like she had the best track record with giving the lower belts advice), but she wasn't about to complain.

The fact that she was finally a black belt didn't sink in until the day, not too far into May, when she found herself automatically helping a new white belt learn their first poomse, and they'd finished the session with a grateful and non-sarcastic, "Thank you, Miss Kenobi."

Rey had frozen, uttered a quiet, "No problem," and then privately shuddered.

Suddenly, she'd become  _Miss Kenobi_ ,  _the responsible Taekwondoian._

 _Oh dear god._  When had that happened, and who had thought that was a good idea?

Promotion came and went about as quickly as her sanity, but Ben wasn't around to see it. It wasn't the first time he'd missed a promotion - Ben was a busy guy, she'd reasoned. From what she'd gathered, Master Snoke was constantly having him do a variety of things for  _The First Order_. What those things were, she never found out, and that fact was bouncing around in her mind, always reminding her that there was something he obviously wasn't telling her.

What truly bothered her was that he'd promised to be there. It was one thing for him to be busy and let her know that he would, reluctantly, miss one of her promotions. But telling her, to her face, that he'd show up only to not be there when the time came? That just wasn't like him, but considering that he'd also missed Hux and Phasma's engagement dinner, she'd found that she wasn't entirely surprised.

It was the day after said promotion when Luke took a seat across from Rey in their normal booth at Maz's, an hour before her regular shift began.

"I swear, that boy," Luke grumbled. "He doesn't even answer my calls anymore."

"He's been busy," she defended weakly. But even she recognized that Ben's increasingly frequent periods of radio silence weren't the result of just a busy life.

Something was wrong, and he wasn't telling anyone about it. After running into him at the diner during girls night, she'd barely seen him.

"Kid," Luke sighed. Rey couldn't help but notice the grizzled grey that was in his expression. Whatever he was going to say was serious. "I know you probably think I'm being harsh on him, but I think Ben is-"

Rey would never hear what Luke was about to say, because he was interrupted by a loud, whistling tune that pierced the air between them. Up until then, Maz's diner had been in the middle of a quiet lull, with the jukebox playing a low scratchy version of some Beach Boys single.

It had taken Rey a minute to place the sound, having heard it only once or twice in her lifetime, but she finally realized the generic melody was coming from Luke's cellphone.

After he'd pulled it out and inspected the screen as if it was some sort of ancient excavated artifact, Luke flipped open the cover and answered, "Hello? Luke Skywalker speaking."

Rey watched carefully as his eyes narrowed, and he repeated, "Yes, Luke Skywalker."

She could almost pinpoint the exact moment his expression had slackened with true shock. His hand, which had been in the process of raising his coffee mug, shook, and Rey strained to try and hear whatever the caller was saying.

"How did he- I see. Uh huh," Luke closed his eyes, releasing a shuddering breath. " _Oh, Ben."_

Suddenly, time stopped, and all Rey could hear was her own beating heart.

There was something pleading and desperate in Luke's voice as he asked, "Is he okay?"

Rey knew in her bones that something terrible was going to happen if she didn't hear the right answer to that question, but thankfully, a moment later, Luke deflated, replying, "Oh, oh thank god."

Tears. Actual tears of relief, panic, and who knows what else, appeared on her master's face, and Rey interrupted, asking, "Where is he?"

He held up a hand (as if Rey could have possibly been patient), and she nearly snapped.

Everything in the once-quiet diner was suddenly too loud - the jukebox was blasting, the kitchen cooks were smashing pots and pans and the buzzing from the lights was a loud megahorn of electricity and if everyone didn't  _shut the fuck up right now_  she was going to-

"Alderaan Memorial Hospital," Luke repeated out loud, and it took Rey about the space of half a breath to jump to her feet and run out the door.

She didn't know what the hell was going on, but something inside her was screaming - insisting that she get to Ben immediately.

Adrenaline pumped through her veins as her brain presented her with a billion different scenarios of what could have possibly happened to land Ben in a hospital. Had it been a car accident? Had he gotten ill? An ocean's worth of possibilities, each one more terrible than the one before, slammed into her mind as she struggled to retain some semblance of logical thinking.

But logic had gone out the door the minute she'd heard the words,  _Is he okay?_

How she arrived at the Falcon, she'd never know, and she didn't even pause to tell Maz she'd be missing her shift. Last she saw, Luke was still on the phone.

Her only thoughts were of Ben, and within seconds, she'd hopped in the car and sped off in the direction of Alderaan Memorial Hospital.

* * *

Rey had never been to Alderaan Memorial Hospital, but she instinctively knew to go to the emergency room. Her brain had probably come up with some sort of logical reasoning for that decision, but she sure as hell wasn't in the mindset to know what it was.

She arrived at the ER reception area with a breathless gasp, realizing she likely couldn't just run from room to room searching for him, much as she wanted to.

"I'm looking for Ben Solo," she blurted to the nearest hospital employee, a fraught and worn young woman in nursing scrubs who looked to be on hour thirty of her scheduled ten-hour shift.

Said employee was at a desk, typing something into a computer when Rey had come in. She turned with agonizing slowness - Rey nearly shrieked at the speed - and asked, in a surprised and exhausted voice, "Are you a family member?"

"Yes, absolutely," Rey hissed, immediately regretting the words as they slipped from her mouth, "I'm his sister, I need to see him  _now."_

_Gross._

Rey swallowed the weirdness because she would have said literally anything at that moment if it meant making sure Ben was okay, but something in her mind whispered  _you're going to feel really weird about that later_.

That was undoubtedly true, but she decided the lie was completely worth it when the woman nodded, checked her computer, and replied, "Okay, he's in room 312 - just down the hall, to the right. He's just had stitches done, so he'll probably be released shortly."

_Stitches?_

Rey blinked, but nodded, and dashed down the hall in the direction the woman had pointed.

* * *

The hospital was brightly lit with people walking every which way and there were safety posters everywhere, a cheery interjection into the building of death and heartbreak. It all seemed to swim together in her vision as she sprinted down the seemingly endless hall, and it was because of them that she ran directly past room 312.

She skidded to a halt when she noticed the double doors and sign indicating that only critical staff was allowed beyond them, noticed the number on the closest door and then turned in the other direction.

She found room 312 and didn't even think to knock before opening the door and barging in.

Ben was sitting in the bed. He was wearing a traditional patient gown, and was laying back in a bed too small for him as his bare ankles hung out over the floor at the bottom of the mattress. There was a glass of water sitting next to him and she could see there were no other patients in the room.

His eyes were wide. Wide and unharmed and as he stared at her, she didn't care if she was sweaty or gross or that she'd broken a dozen traffic laws on her drive over.

"Ben," she breathed - possibly for the first time since the diner - and took a step inside.

Just one step, because then she realized someone else was there.

"Miss Kenobi," Alistair Snoke said, in his sharp suit and sharper voice. His voice cut through the blanket of silence that had befallen them. "How did you get in here?"

"I-"

"No matter," the man huffed, dismissing her in the space of three syllables, "Please wait outside, so I may continue my conversation with my student."

Rey floundered, trying to grasp what bizarre reality she'd stepped into where Snoke was there for Ben before Luke. Before  _her_.

"Rey," Ben said harshly, and her heart ached when he did. She'd longed to hear her name on his lips once, but not like that.  _Never_  like that. "What are you doing here?"

There was gauze covering the right side of his face, stretching from just below his eye, down to his jaw, medical tape holding it in place. His hair was a mess, strewn about and stuck to the side of his face, and the grime of at least a days' worth of work was visible from the neckline up.

" _Outside,_  Miss Kenobi."

And suddenly Ben was no longer looking at her. Something approaching shame and hate leapt to his expression before he carefully wiped it away.

She looked between the two, still torn between madness and relief, and, against every single one of her instincts, she stepped back outside. She could see the plea in Ben's expression, and for whatever reason, she could tell he didn't want her there.

The door to room 312 shut like a vault, and, because like  _fuck_  was she going to let it go so easy, she brought her hoodie up and leaned against the door, angling her head ever so slightly so she could press her ear up against the old wood.

"-oolish child," Snoke said, and there was genuine amusement in his voice. "Did you notify her?"

"No sir," Ben's mumbled voice came through, sullen and...empty. "I have no idea how she knew."

"Hmph. You've been slacking, Kylo Ren."

True repugnance slithered its way into Snoke's voice then, and Rey had to stop herself from smacking her hands against the wall. She didn't know a lot about Taekwondo. Hell, there were some days she barely knew enough to not trip over herself, but Masters did not treat students like this.

There was an exchange, too low for her to hear through the wood, but it ended with Snoke snorting and saying, "You live in a fanciful world, my student."

"...I'm sorry, master."

"Skywalker will be here soon," Snoke said, voice silky, "Where she goes, he is not far. I'd almost think he'd replaced you with her, with how he protects her so."

Ben mumbled something meek and assenting.

"You  _stupid_  child."

 _Fight back, Ben,_ she found herself wishing, seeing the opportunity for what it was. This was a chance to free himself of this man, of whatever chains he'd bound himself to.

"Sir?"

She could hear the smaller man began to pace in the room. His expensive shoes made loud clack-clacking noises against the floor, like a knife on a butcher's block. "You never updated your emergency contact information, did you?"

_Please. Fight back._

"...No sir."

"Of course  _not,_ " Snoke murmured into the room, "The invincible Kylo Ren. Generations of talent in your bloodline, a master in the making, practically destined for greatness even from birth, and-" Oil and acid peeled at Rey's skin as she heard the next part, "he couldn't even remember to change a  _fucking_ document."

There was a sound of flesh hitting flesh, and she heard Ben cry out.

She blinked as the disconnect between reality and her thoughts tried to reassert itself.  _Did he just…?_

"You are lucky I came when I did, boy," Snoke hissed, almost lovingly. It was a sick, twisted thing and she wanted to throw herself inside and stop this -  _stop him_  - but the answers were finally presenting themselves, "I warned you you weren't ready to defend against the Jiǔjiébiān, but  _no,_  you had to prove yourself to me."

The bed seemed to squeak against its frame as Ben physically adjusted. "I apologize, master," he muttered, "It won't happen again."

Snoke's laugh was grey and devoid of humor. "You are a very poor liar, my student."

"Sir?"

"You were slated for proper defense training against ranged weapons starting next month," Snoke continued, without missing a beat, "But seeing as you are so eager, I think we can begin preparations once you are released."

"I-" Fear, unmitigated and monstrous in its pureness, seemed to fill Ben's voice, "-may I request a break, sir? From training?"

"...what for?"

Something great and empty waited behind the door, suddenly. Empty and vast and encompassing. It was in there with Ben, and Rey could feel the cool press of the wooden door against her body, she could see the metal handle, waiting for her. Ten feet away was a monster worse than any imaginary conjuration or fantasy beast, and it was alone in the same room as someone she loved.

 _Open the door,_ her brain screamed,  _Open the door and end this._

Her hands were shaking as she instead pressed her palms against the door. As if she could fucking push everything inside away.

Ben said something, again, and this time there was a hint of defiance. She couldn't make out what but she felt a burst of pride. Pride and love for this man who could stand in the presence of monsters and tell them  _no._

But Snoke, instead of raging or hissing or anything else, Snoke fucking  _cooed_ , "When I found you, Kylo Ren, I saw something all masters wish to see. Talent, power, and drive. I saw something  _truly_ special in you then."

A beat of silence.

"But now," he continued, voice falling to the flat and hungry growl of a wolf, "now I'm starting to think you're just a child, just a  _boy,_  wearing a mask, pretending at greatness."

"I am no  _boy_ ," Ben snapped then, and hope bloomed in her chest that  _this was it-_

Another loud smack then, and all the righteous fury, all that bearing and pride and confidence, dashed away in the blink of an eye.

Vomit threatened to rise from her then. Bile and horror intermixed equally.

"You are and forever will be, until I say otherwise, my student," Snoke finished, the voice of a kindly old man covering the blackness underneath. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Ben's sullen, resentful answer came then.

"Ah ah," Snoke tutted, and she could just imagine him waving a chiding finger. Eldritch abominations could take lessons from the man.

"...yes, Master Snoke."

And it was perhaps the defeat in that last statement that truly spurred her to action. Whatever fear she felt, suddenly it paled in the face of the burning white hot star taking hold of her limbs.

"What the  _fuck_  is wrong with you?!" Rey heard herself howl.

It was like an out of body experience as she barged into the room, and she was met with the cool disdain she was used to seeing from the grand master she now despised. She couldn't even bring herself to look at the person on the hospital bed as Snoke chuckled darkly.

"Miss Kenobi, I think you've forgotten your place."

Ben was sitting on the side of the bed, facing his mast- his  _monster._

Rey let out a guttural sound akin to a rabid dog. "What are you doing to him?"

"Hmm? Nothing." There was a wicked serenity to the man now, as he brought his arms out from his coat pockets, and held them to his side, "Nothing that my student has not prepared himself for.."

"Like  _hell._  Ben," she addressed him directly, and she saw him tense up, visibly and suddenly like a spring ready to snap in twain, "Ben, what happened?"

Ben didn't even turn to meet her stare. "I fell down the stairs."

" _Bullshit_ ," she called out, feeling her heart snap and shatter and shrivel. "Ben, I swear. Tell me the truth, I'll get Master Luke and-"

"You seem to be under the impression that my student was not aware of the risks when he took part in my training," Snoke interjected smoothly. "You know as well as I do that accidents happen during training. After all," he tilted his head at her, as if she was some random curio to be perused, "that is what insurance is for."

"Insurance my a-"

"Rey," a quiet voice interrupted, "Stop."

Rey stopped her tirade before she could truly get going. "Ben?"

She saw his head twitch to Snoke's direction, as if asking for permission. Snoke, for his part, nodded, a small thin smile on his snake lips.

"What happened is none of your concern, Miss Kenobi. Kylo Ren will be exiting the hospital shortly, and as you can see, he is fine."

Snoke gestured to Ben, and in this light, she saw the redness in his palm. The hand that had  _dared_  touch-

Ben stood, then turned around and looked her in the eye.

"Master Skywalker," Ben said, in as dead a voice as any she'd ever heard, "Leia. It's...good to see you."

Rey turned around, to see both Luke and Leia in the doorway. Both were red and flushed in the face, each looking harried and tired and more furious than she'd ever seen either of them. A shiver went up her spine and she felt the pressure of these figures press in around her. A smarter, calmer, Rey, probably would have stepped aside to let the two of them handle this.

That Rey didn't exist, and she decided that, if being smart meant letting things lie, she'd give up all logic to fight this poor excuse for a grand master.

"Ben," Leia whispered, maybe to herself, maybe to Ben himself, "What happened to you?"

They were attracting a crowd from outside the hospital room. Good. Maybe more people would mean someone would finally put a stop to all of this.

"I'm fine, Leia." Ben inclined his head in a nod, and his lips formed something lame and curved upwards, but most definitely not a smile, "Master Snoke helped me take care of everything."

"I'm sure he did," Luke rumbled sarcastically, stepping into the room, "How did he get here before us?"

"Kylo here had an accident on my property, Master Skywalker," Snoke explained, as if the word  _accident_  could so easily describe everything that had happened, "And I had to come and make sure he was well. He is a  _prized_ student, after all."

Snoke placed a companionable hand on Ben's shoulder, and Rey didn't know what was worse, that Ben didn't flinch away from the man, or that he actually seemed relieved to have Snoke there, like some demented comfort puppet.

"Rey, you need to leave," Luke said carefully, "I think I need to speak with Ben."

"I'm not going anywhere!" she argued, "Not until I know he's okay."

"Kylo," Snoke said dryly, his wry amusement starting to give way, "Tell the girl you're fine. And…" his smile would have been pitying if the man were capable of it, "kindly remind her of your preferred form of address, please. I'm an old man, I'm afraid I get confused when all these names get tossed around."

Rey inhaled sharply, and she met Ben's eyes. In an instant, she wanted to beg him to just be  _Ben_.

 _One more chance,_  her heart crooned.  _Please._

Dark eyes, no longer familiar to her, filled with something vile.

"You should go, Rey," he finally said. Then his voice weakened, as he choked out the words, "And I told you - you should get used to calling me Kylo Ren."

Their eyes met for another second or two, and Rey felt the cold, harsh truth burst through her skin, and she knew it deep in her bones as she said, "No." She shook her head, and repeated, "No. I'll never call you that."

He blinked once, and replied blankly, no longer seeing her there, "Then you should leave."

* * *

Rey stormed out of the hospital before security could drag her out for all the yelling she'd done, and she looked around the area desperately searching for something she could punch. She growled at nothing and clenched her fist, eyeing a nearby tree that she could probably break her hand on-

"Rey!" Luke commanded, "Stop! We need to talk."

He'd followed out behind her, and when she miraculously heeded his command, he paused, and said in a low voice, "What you did in there-"

She whirled around to face him. "What  _I_ did in there? Did you see what  _he_  did to Ben?"

"Of course I did!" Luke growled, and for the first time, Rey realized just how truly affected Luke was, "Do you take me for a fool, Rey?"

"The way you act?" she snarled, " 'Oh, It's not your problem, Rey', 'Ben's just being a gigantic tool, Rey', 'Don't mind the fucking stitches on his face, Rey, Ben's just a complete idiot!'" She jabbed a finger in his chest, "You've known something shifty's been going on for ages now, and you haven't done anything about it!"

Luke seemed to breathe in and radiate heat as he looked down at her finger, still pressing against his chest. "Do you really think, that I haven't tried everything I can to save him - to save the man who might as well be my so-"

He choked, and closed his eyes. A myriad of complex emotions seemed to war with him, and when he opened his eyes, there was that age-old pain she'd seen once. "To save my  _family?"_

Rey felt a pang of sympathy for Luke. She really, truly did. But it was buried underneath a supernova of unbridled hatred that had nowhere to go but forward.

"What have you done, then?" she snarked, "What has the great Grand Master Luke Skywalker, sixth degree black belt, and done to stop that monster from getting too close to Ben?"

"You are stepping over a great many lines right now, Rey," Luke warned. A powerful hush seemed to envelope the two of them as he said his next few words. "You know, kid, I've seen this sort of anger in another student only once before, and you saw it too. Ben."

"Ben would never-"

"That day he nearly killed Plutt."

That stopped Rey short. Of course she remembered that day. It had featured in her nightmares more than once. If she hadn't stopped Ben...

Luke kept going. "It didn't scare me enough then, but right now? You're scaring me." He shook his head, and let out a shaky breath, "You're lucky I'm not taking your belt back and banning you from the Dojang."

People who passed by them were giving them odd glances, but Rey barely noticed. She only felt the now comfortable distortion of anger along her skin, relentless and unsatisfied.

"Master Luke, he's in danger!" she seethed. "Can't you see that? I don't know what's going on, but that fucking  _monster_  is hurting him…that- that  _scum_  deserves to  _die_ ," she snarled, not even bothering to worry that she was shouting at him on the sidewalk. "How can you just let this go on? Why haven't you done anything? I  _know_  you know something about what's going on!  _Don't you care?_ "

It was as much accusation as it was plea, and of course, Luke rebuffed her with a sharp retort.

"Ben's an adult, and he made his own choices!  _He's_  the one who walked out of the Dojang, Rey!  _He's_  the one who took a job with Snoke!" Luke yelled harshly. "I won't pretend it doesn't hurt, but it was  _his_  choice to make and he made it."

"Was it his choice to get maimed then?!"

"If you go back in there, Ben won't be the only person getting hurt today." Luke pointed out seriously, "You were ready to attack Snoke in there."

"Of course I was!"

Her master huffed, and glared at her, looking every bit the cold, intimidating man he was on that fateful day they sparred, years earlier. "Miss Kenobi, you need to pull yourself together and decide if you really want to follow him down the path he's picked."

He probably meant for it to sound ominous and foreboding. Unfortunately, her decision had been made long ago.

"Don't give me that shit, Luke," she sneered. "This is Ben we're talking about! It's  _Ben!_ How  _dare_  you ask me that? I would follow him  _anywhere!"_  Rey roared, feeding the budding sea of hate with her own words.

She took a startled breath, and blinked, surprised by her own admission. She took a step back and went silent immediately.

Luke seemed to take a breath and calm himself, to gear himself for what he was going to say next. "Oh Rey. Why don't-"

"You won't sacrifice your precious Taekwondo ideals for your own fucking family?!"

She had no words for what happened then. One moment he was getting ready for the lecture of a lifetime and the next he just...crumpled. He seemed to sag in place, and his very bearing seemed to lose that confident and easy grace he always had. He was no longer the Taekwondo master, and instead, the old and tired uncle of a very lost man.

She stayed in place, as amazed by the transformation as she was surprised.

"Oh, Rey." Luke sighed, eventually, "Choose your next words  _very_  carefully. Do you, or do you not want to remain at my Dojang?"

She hesitated before taking a few deep breaths, and nodded, making eye contact with the ground. "I do."

Luke studied her for a moment before finally speaking. "Eight stripes.  _Minimum_ ," he said blankly, with no further explanation.

"Sir?"

"Eight stripes," he repeated, and it seemed like an effort just to say that, "before your second Dan."

Rey's jaw dropped. "Isn't it normally four?"

"It is," he nodded, and his skin suddenly seemed livery and pale in the midday light. "You'll need more. You still haven't learned balance."

Balance seemed like the last thing she needed right now. She...she needed Ben back. In her life. In Luke's life. She was dimly aware of Luke still speaking.

"I love you, kid, but...I refuse to promote another Black Belt to second dan who hasn't learned balance. I made that mistake once." A pause, either to catch his breath or something else, she couldn't tell. "I won't do it again."

"That's an extra year of training," she said quietly, the wind suddenly knocked out of her sails.

"At  _least_. But you don't have to do it." He crossed his arms, and said, "You can quit, or you can accept it. It's your choice, Rey."

"I'll do it."

Luke eyed her wearily and added, groaning, " _Ben?_  Oh, kid, please tell me this is just some sort of last minute teenage rebellion before you turn twenty."

He paused, and collected his thoughts before saying softly, "Rey, he's no good for you." He took a deep breath, and said seriously, "Ben's too…" He made an undefinable gesture to the hospital that she guessed was meant to encompass everything in it. "Too angry. He's consumed by that anger...that  _darkness._ "

Her eyes flashed up to meet his, and she held back from saying the biting words she wished to say. Instead, she looked down at the ground and answered him quietly.

"Maybe I could be his light."

She expected Luke to scoff. Maybe even yell again. Instead he just looked sad, and tired.

"Starlight." Luke said quietly, finally understanding. "Is that why he calls you that?"

"He said…" she whispered shakily, "He said as long as he follows me, he's home."

Luke's expression softened as he warned, "Be careful Rey. It's a nice sentiment, but that's not an easy path."

"I know," Rey said quietly. "But Luke, I don't know what you want me to say." She shrugged, "It's always been him."

Luke sighed softly, shook his head before he walked away in the direction of the parking garage. It left her alone with Leia, and multiple strangers on the street who had watched the scene with wide eyes. When Rey looked up, she noticed the woman staring at her.

Leia approached her slowly like a lioness might approach an injured future-meal.

"I  _never_  want to hear you speak to my brother like that again," she said in a measured, careful tone that burned as harshly as the coldest ice. "Luke's love for my son is the only reason he hasn't stripped him of his belts."

Rey blinked, and recoiled in surprise. She hadn't heard of anyone actually being stripped of belts before. Of course, it was certainly a possibility, and a thing that happened, but it was  _severe_  punishment.

"My brother," Leia started again, "has been putting off launching a formal investigation into Ben and his involvement with Snoke and the  _First Order_. With all the rumors flying around, it's his responsibility to do that, you know." Leia sighed. "I don't know what Ben's gotten into, but it's bad enough that Luke's struggling to decide what to do. In some ways, it's his responsibility as Ben's former Master to take his belts."

"Ben would never talk to him again," Rey whispered. "That's  _years_  worth of effort and promoting. Over a decade! Taekwondo's his life!"

Leia looked at her measuringly before nodding. "That's why he hasn't done it." She hesitated, and said, "Look, Rey, I made the mistake once of thinking that Luke would put Taekwondo before his own family, and I don't want you to do the same. Luke…" she paused, "Luke's been doing just the opposite."

Leia exhaled slowly, and said softly, "And...as far as Ben. It's mutual. You know that, right?" She took a few steps closer to Rey, and considered her carefully, "My son loves you. I don't know if it's romantic or not - it's not like he talks to me about those things. But it's love, of some sort," Leia paused before asking, "Does he know how you feel?"

"No. Or, at least, I don't think so?" Rey admitted. "But it's the least of my concerns right now. I just-" she took a deep breath, "I need to get him away from Snoke."

"I know. I'm worried, too."

Rey whispered, looking into the woman's familiar brown eyes, "I'll bring him back, Leia. I know him, and he's not too far gone...he can still come back from whatever he's involved in. I know it."

The woman nodded carefully and pursed her lips. "I hope you're right."

* * *

It's a Friday afternoon in June when a man comes into the clinic, and the only words Poe can think of to describe him are  _beat to shit_. His wounds look a day or two old, but blood has caked over, with some pus seeping from multiple spots that will need stitches. And a  _lot_  of sterilization. Poe can only wince as he sees the bruises that have formed across his skin.

But the clinic sees injured people all the time, so it's only when the man utters the name  _Kylo Ren_  that Poe starts feeling dark clouds looming on the horizon.

It's only when the man mutters something about  _Tatooine_ , and  _fucking monster_  that his blood runs cold.

And when the man says that name - that  _fucking name -_ again...

That's when Poe sits down next to him, hands shaking, and manages to get out the question he dreads hearing the answer to.

Ten minutes later, Poe's finally got his heart to stop pounding, and he types out a frantic message to the only person he knows who might be able to explain what he's just heard.

~

Within the hour, Phasma sits behind the front desk of  _The_   _First Order_ , bites her lip, and listens to the steady rhythm of rain falling. She's got Ben's phone in her hands.

His  _work_ phone.

There's something truly disturbing about his actions as of late, and that mark on his back, coupled with his fresh scar that sure as hell wasn't from a fall, had sent up warning signs in her head. The last straw was a cryptic text from Poe, mentioning something about a patient who looks like he's been mauled, blaming his injuries on a man named  _Kylo Ren._

By some act of fate she manages to swipe his phone without him noticing. Phasma's been curious about this special phone for a while, and it's possible she's glanced over as Ben put his password in. She has an excellent memory.

A minute of indecision later, she powers it up and spends no less than thirty seconds snooping before she drops it as if it's burned her.

A dozen deep breaths later and she takes out her own phone, pushes a few buttons, and waits for Rey to pick up. When she does Phasma can barely think of how to respond, and when Rey gets more concerned, she finally stammers, "It's Ben."

"There's something very,  _very_ bad going on," she breathes.

She's shaken, because everything she's ever thought about her close friend, and her Master - the man she's looked up to for so long, and trusted so deeply...

It's all been terribly wrong.

But she pulls herself together and says in a hardened voice, "Can you be ready in an hour? If I pick up the keys from your apartment, can we take the Falcon?"

~

Rey knows, that Friday, that something is going on. She's known it for a while - love might be blind, but she's no fool. Something in her bones tells her that things are reaching a boiling point. Ben's cancelled and missed countless plans - he even missed her 19th birthday earlier that week.

In the spare few moments she's seen him in the past month, he hasn't been himself. Literally. After insisting on being called  _Kylo Ren_  at the hospital, they haven't exchanged more than a handful of words, and something about that day still sends chills down her spine. What she saw that day was bad enough, but she somehow knows there's more to the story.

Instead of moping over yet another cancelled trip to the diner, she decides to be productive, and that's how she ends up walking to the Dojang despite her reluctance to go out after she hears thunder coming from somewhere nearby.

And when she gets Phasma's call she can't decide whether to scream or cry, because she thinks, maybe, her heart is breaking. She settles for pummeling a punching bag until tears start flowing, and in a stunning moment of clarity, she starts connecting the dots.

All of the sudden, Rey knows that whatever Ben's gotten himself into is far worse than she's feared. But she loves him, so she's ready and waiting when Phasma and Poe arrive to pick her up.

For better or worse, she's going to find out exactly what the hell's going on.

~

Later that night, in a repurposed warehouse in Tatooine, Ben Solo rages in a room that was once someone's office, and has since been turned into a makeshift locker room.

He shatters a mirror with his fists, and once blood starts flowing from the fresh cuts in his hand he moves on to the drywall, leaving fist-sized holes in his wake.

His Master will not be pleased, but he keeps going, and only freezes when he catches a glimpse of the man he's become in the broken glass he'd previously put his fist through. The scar bisecting his face is oddly fitting now.

Ben Solo does not approve of the man - no, the  _monster_  - in the mirror.

He hates himself.

He's let down everyone he's ever loved, and there's no turning back now. There's not a soul left who could forgive him for what he's done, so he accepts his fate and finally admits that the monster in the mirror is no longer Ben Solo.

He is Kylo Ren, and Kylo Ren knows he must let the past die.

And so he will.

He focuses on the evening ahead. The first fight went easily. The second will, too, and someone will undoubtedly end up in a hospital bed over the weekend, but it won't be him.

That's what his Master demanded.

And so it will be.

In another mirror, he catches a glimpse of the mark on his back, and he can't help but stare. Phasma was right. It's hardly a tattoo - ink has never met his skin.

His Master has branded him, marking Kylo Ren as his.

And so he will be.

For some reason, old words call to him, and he wonders if they'll ever come to pass. Ben Solo had thought the girl would either be his saving grace, or his downfall. Kylo Ren knows better; he knows he can't be saved, and he refuses to be seduced by all the light and goodness that she is.

But what Kylo Ren doesn't know is that a storm is brewing, and it's headed his way, hurtling down the streets of Tatooine in an old Falcon.

And so the storm will come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A dangerous field trip, a break, and an offering.
> 
> Chapters 34-40 will take place all over a very short amount of time. Think a couple of weeks, not months. Those chapters will end Act II and kick off Act III.
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> Onfire: We are available to answer questions (non-spoilery to the best of our ability), but I think, thematically, we'll leave these notes a little sparse.
> 
> Attack: Uh...presented without comment?
> 
> Definitions:
> 
> Jiǔjiébiān: Chain whip, primarily used in Chinese kung fu arts.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	34. Black Belt, Second Stripe, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so we posted this on Tumblr, but neglected to leave it in our notes here - SORRY! Obviously some people have noticed we missed our usual Tuesday update. That's because we decided to take some extra time to work on writing chapters 34-38 (they all happen over two-story weeks) so we can post them more quickly than we normally would. These five chapters are going to be pretty intense and angsty, and most of them end on cliffhangers, so we didn't like the idea of making you all wait a while between each one. So we're planning to post all five chapters within ten days. Dates (as of now) are: Ch 34 (8/19), CH 35 (8/21), CH 36 (8/23), CH 37 (8/25), and CH 38 (8/27). Hopefully we'll be able to stick to that. We've gotten many of the scenes pre-written, so I think we will. If you ever want an ETA, just comment here or ask us on Tumblr - we're happy to let you know when a chapter is going up, especially if we've missed a regular update.
> 
> So, this is a hell of a chapter. Length-wise, and content-wise. We're finally getting more Poe POV and...well, I won't say too much, but if you need something fluffy after this, check out our other WIPs (we're writing a couple of rom-coms).
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


Phasma's reasoning for taking the Falcon became clear when she picked Rey up.

Poe had dropped his clunker of a car off at Rey's place. It was an old rackety Toyota that may as well have come with its own light show for how much noise it made, and Phasma claimed her silver Mazda was too recognizable, especially if  _The First Order_  was involved in whatever they were going to investigate. They were looking to get information and maybe find out more about the Kylo Ren alias that Ben had been insisting on. With any luck, they'd know all they need to after the trip, at which point they could decided what needed to be done.

Though the thought galled her, Rey had given up the driver's seat to Phasma, for two reasons. The first was that Rey had seen Poe drive, and though she would never think as poorly of him as she did in their first meeting, she was reasonably sure he was a question on the driver's exam.

The second reason was that Rey was too distracted to drive and she needed to keep her wits about her, especially if they were heading as far out as Tatooine.

She'd never sat in the back of the Falcon before. It was like an entirely different world back there - very roomy, and surprisingly cushioned too. In the years since she'd inherited the Falcon, she'd done her best to the keep the car as smooth and well cared for as Han had, though there always seemed to be a nick in the paint-job. Once again she marveled at the effort Han had gone to preserve the car when it would have been easier to just get a new one.

Unfortunately, the novelty of staying in the back wore off quickly. None of them had said much, aside from the low murmurs of conversation as the GPS listed off directions in an inappropriately chipper voice. They sat in awkward and heavy silence for less than ten minutes before Rey finally had enough, and piped up, asking, "So, where exactly are we heading?"

Outside, the edges of Coruscant's city limits started coming into view. They left the business district's lights behind them as they moved through the streets.

"Tatooine," Phasma answered, after another pregnant silence, "I don't know exactly where-"

"I do," Poe interrupted. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. "It's some old warehouse."

She caught his eye in the mirror before he looked away. There was a frown on his face that looked strange on his normally cheery face.

"How'd you find out about it?" she asked, half-wondering if she even wanted to know. It seemed like every nugget of information she'd managed to scrape from Ben about had been hard-fought and double-edged in its reveal.

She saw Poe hesitate. Again.

"A guy came in to the clinic last night," he said, eventually, "He was...well, let's say I've seen hamburger meat look better."

Phasma let out a harsh aggrieved sigh, and Rey heard the distinct sound of someone's knuckle cracking, but she didn't interrupt.

"He was a big guy," Poe continued undeterred, "Like, he was right up there with Ben. And he was really out of it too. He kept mumbling about a monster."

Rey raised an expectant eyebrow. She knew Poe was trying to ease her into the revelation, but she felt too tired to be angry at this point. The punching bag had done little to alleviate the mounting tension in her body and she wondered when the last worry free sleep she'd gotten had been. Weeks ago, probably.

"Was he on drugs?" Rey asked.

Poe shook his head, and muttered something low and to himself, before saying, "Nothing I could tell just from glancing, but it didn't matter; his injuries - I'm talking a lot of bruises, and a broken arm - were kinda' old by that point."

Phasma glanced over at him from the driver's seat, and, with practised aplomb, shifted gears as they took an exit and started climbing onto the highway. Massive indistinct shapes began to streak by them in the darkness.

Poe started tapping against the top of the passenger side door. "Near as I can tell, they were at least a day old. He had a cut on his face that was definitely infected though."

"Jesus," Phasma said. Her voice was ragged and sharp. "Is he ok?"

"He'll live," Poe shook his head in wonder, "Pretty sure he had a concussion too. Apparently he'd been passed out for a couple of days, and just woke up yesterday evening."

"So, what? He just told you everything?" Rey frowned - something about this wasn't adding up.

"Ah, yeah,  _that_...not so much," Poe looked uncomfortable, "He kept going on about Kylo Ren, and I did get him to tell me that's who caused the injuries...but honestly I don't think he was even aware of what I was asking him."

Phasma looked over at him and snorted. "Concussions do that to a person. I'm not sure he would have even gone to that clinic if he didn't have one."

Rey was quiet for a moment as she processed that statement. "What do you mean?"

"The clinic I work at is like, ten minutes away from the university," Poe reasoned, "If he got those injuries in Tatooine, why would he go to a clinic seventy miles away?"

"Alright then, Sherlock," Rey said, "Hit me then. Why  _would_ he?"

"He didn't. At least, he thinks he didn't. He  _was_  treated at some point - his arm was in a splint when he came in - but he thought he was back in Tatooine. Back with  _The First Order._ "

Rey nodded, finally understanding what they meant. "But shouldn't  _The First Order_ have checked him for concussions then?"

"They probably did," Poe shrugged, "But it's not exactly like it's a precise science. If I were them I'd probably have someone check on injured people routinely, to make sure they don't talk to the wrong people while they're recovering. Our guy was just too out of it to know he was in Coruscant and not Tatooine or Mandalore."

They went quiet as they spotted a set of flashing lights on the side of the road. Rey wondered if the other two felt the same instinctive guilt she did as they passed the police car, which had pulled over a pair of brightly colored cars filled with people. The air in the Falcon seemed to unclench a smidgen as they passed them by.

"So, it was all just dumb luck, then?" Rey wondered, feeling a little disappointed. She'd been thinking that  _maybe_ Ben had sent that man there in the hopes of getting Poe's attention. Of course, that would have been ridiculous, since Ben could just as well have texted Poe everything they needed to know.

"Sort of." Poe's tapping on the passenger door stopped. "The guy had his phone on him, and I...kind of, maybe, sort of...broke into it."

Phasma let out a sharp cynical bark of laughter. "You're not as much of a straight edge as I thought, Dameron."

Rey saw Poe shrug. "He had a fingerprint lock, and it wasn't like the guy was in his right mind when I used his hand to unlock it. There wasn't much on the phone, but he  _did_  have an address saved in his GPS history."

The blanket of night had long fallen and after the police car miles back they'd become the only car on the highway. The only light left was that of the dashboard and from the Falcon's headlights as they entripedly braved the pitch abyss. It made being in the car with Phasma and Poe feel far more lonely than Rey would have expected.

"So we don't even know if this is the right place?" Rey muttered, already seeing the fraying edges of their so-called plan, "We're just going based on some random person's phone history?"

"Not necessarily," Phasma spoke up, "I may have looked at Ben's phone, too."

There was a small surge of non-surprise in Rey. "You did? Wait, no nevermind, of course you did."

"Don't go getting your panties in a bunch," Phasma snorted, "I took a look at his work phone. The jackass hasn't been answering his normal phone for months now. Honestly, I'm not sure he even has it anymore."

There was a click of her teeth snapping shut, as Phasma's deadpan revelation shut Rey's protest at her casual violation of Ben's privacy up. A sick feeling creeped into the pit of her stomach and Rey was just glad she'd forgotten to eat lunch - otherwise she'd have been sick. There was a noxious smell from somewhere outside, and it blended perfectly with the feeling in her gut.

It wasn't just Rey then. She'd hoped, at least partially, that Ben's friendship with Phasma and Hux hadn't been deteriorating, just so she could sleep knowing someone was keeping on eye on her best friend, but Phasma's blunt statement had destroyed any hopes of that.

"What'd you find then?" Rey forced herself to ask, because if she paused to think about the situation too much, she really was going to throw up.

"An address," Phasma muttered. "Not the same one, but close enough for me to think they might be the same place. And...some messages."

"Messages?" Rey couldn't help but repeat, if only for how ominous it sounded.

"Nothing conclusive," she assured, as if  _conclusive_  were a bad thing. "Just a lot skeevy sounding messages from some unlisted numbers. Instructions on how to treat injuries, with some pictures here and there to illustrate it."

Rey closed her eyes and ignored the swaying of the Falcon. She tried not to think of Ben, injured and beaten in the hospital bed, that monster standing over him like some puppeteer playing with his favorite toy. She opened her eyes and met Phasma's crystal blue in the rearview mirror. "Were they pictures of Ben?"

"No." Phasma shook her head. "I sent them to myself and did a reverse search and they're all ones that were online. Still..."

"Yeah," Rey breathed. "Still, he's getting hurt."

Suddenly, Poe smashed his fist against the dashboard. "Goddammit.  _Goddammit._ "

"Hey cool it!" Phasma scolded, smacking his arm with her right hand. "This car's hard enough to steer, I don't need you distracting me even more."

"Cool it? Don't tell me to cool it!" Poe turned, his voice a sudden and explosive cacophony in the relative silence of the road. "One of my friends has gotten himself into some messed up shit! He's been avoiding me and everyone else for months now, he's using these secret phones for goddamn everything _,_ he's answering to some weird and freaky name, and I'm pretty sure he's the guy who beat the ever loving crap out of that guy from the clinic, and I'm supposed to just  _cool it?_ "

"Yes. You are," Phasma's voice had gone cold. "If you don't, I'll be happy to just kick your disrespectful mouth out of the car here and now, and have you figure out your own damn way back. We need to approach this calmly and rationally."

"Calmly my ass," Poe growled, "Don't think I haven't forgotten your part in all of this."

"My part?" There was something poisonous and ready in her tone, and Rey knew that Poe had touched a nerve. "What the hell do you mean,  _my part?_  Please. Elucidate me."

Poe may as well have stuck a fork in an electrical socket for how much charge there suddenly was in the air, but that didn't seem to stop him as he tore into her.

"How about we start with the fact that you've been working with Ben for  _years_  and you never noticed anything?" Poe said, counting with his fingers, "Or that you were the one to get him the job in the first place? Hmm? You never think it weird that your master just accepted some random third Dan and made him a teacher?"

"Whoa!" Phasma swerved out of the way of a surprise pothole, yanking Rey around by the seatbelt and almost slamming her against the driver-side rear door. She saw Phasma turn her head and look at Poe completely. "Are you seriously-"

"Guys! Knock it off!" Rey yelled, reaching forward and grabbing both of their shoulders. The two of them jerked in place, and after about half a second of glaring at each other, both harrumphed and turned to face the road again. Rey breathed a sigh of relief. At least if they were to die that night, it wouldn't be because Phasma ended up wrapping the Falcon around a street pole because she was too busy arguing.

The tension in the air crackled with unseen electricity, and for a moment Rey wondered if they were going immediately pick up from where they left off.

It was with a jolt of realization that Rey realized that it was up to her to calm them down.

Seriously, since when had she become the responsible one?

She tried changing the topic. "So, we all agree  _something_ 's going on," she started, "And we all know there's some sort of fighting going on, judging by the texts Phasma found and...what Poe's patient said." There was a creeping and pitiless exhaustion trying to worm its way up through her spine, but she resolutely ignored it. "What's Ben's role in all this?"

Her friends got quiet for a moment, and Rey noticed them glance at each other as if silently arguing who was going to tell her.

"Guys," she snapped, "Seriously, I've had it with the secrets. I'm going to find out when we get there so you may as well tell me."

"Ben's the one who beat the shit out of that guy, Rey," Poe said quietly, "I'm not sure on the details but I don't think it was anything spontaneous."

"What?" Rey retorted, "You think he  _planned_  that?"

The thought slithered down her throat and seemed to spread to her lungs. Whatever warmth there'd been in the Falcon seemed to evaporate the longer none of them said anything.

"Ben wouldn't do that," she said at last, "Getting into fights was the whole reason he had to move in with Luke. He...he wouldn't do that."

"Rey-"

"He  _wouldn't,_ alright?" It was only when she said that last part that she realized she'd leaned forward and had grabbed Poe's arm. She couldn't tell in the grasping shadows, but Poe had turned in his seat, and she imagined he was shooting her a look full of pity.

With a glare that she hoped to convey the sheer ridiculousness of the thought of Ben intentionally hurting people, she sat back in her seat, trying to ignore the memories of all the times Ben had mentioned being sore for some reason or other.

After a few minutes of silence, Phasma spoke up. "There's something else. Have either of you gotten a look at Ben's back lately?"

There came a thumping sound from Poe's seat. It sounded a little like he'd kicked the floor. "I can't even get the guy to answer my texts."

Phasma nodded as if she expected this. "Rey?"

"No. Most I saw was when he was in the hospital for those stitches I told you about."

"Ben's calling it a tattoo, but-" Phasma made a sudden animalistic noise that raised the hairs on Rey's arm, "-he's been fucking branded."

Poe's response was a simple and disbelieving, "...what?"

"He's got this scar on his back," Phasma said, lifting one hand on the wheel to gesture to a point right between her shoulder blades, "I thought it was a trick of the light when I saw it but, tricks of the light don't look like your workplace logo, y'know?"

The woman let out a bitter and humorless laugh at her joke.

Rey didn't know how to respond, but Poe summarized her feelings accurately when he hissed, "Phasma, what is  _wrong_  with your master?"

Phasma audibly swallowed, and for perhaps the first time ever, Rey realized that she was shaking. "I asked around, at the gym. After I found out. No one really wanted to tell me, but I think it's supposed to be some kind of status symbols with the guys there."

"Yeah," Rey couldn't resist pitching her own two cents, "Body mutilation sounds like it'd all the rage with a bunch of meatheads."

"I'm just as surprised as you are," Phasma admitted. "I always knew Snoke was intense-"

"I think branding students is a little more than  _intense_ , don't you?" Rey snapped, reality finally catching up to her. "He's not  _intense_ , he's insane!"

Phasma huffed and muttered something low and rude before saying, "Believe it or not, I'm inclined to agree with you." There was a beat of silence in which only their ragged breaths were heard, "When I saw it and asked Ben, he just sort of...shut down."

"Shut down?" Rey asked, interest piqued. It sounded a lot like how he'd been in the hospital.

"Yeah, like," Phasma smacked her lips, as if trying to taste the words before they came out, "like, I thought he was going to attack me. Like he thought I was coming after him."

"To be fair," Poe pointed out, "You did punch him, didn't you?"

"This was different." Outside, a car passed them by in the opposite direction, and for a brief second both their faces were illuminated by the transient light. Rey got a good luck at Phasma's face, and all she could see was the sickly and debilitating shadow of fear on her normally confident face. "It was like he thought I was going to attack him. To hurt him. For real."

None of them said anything for a bit. Outside, the forestry of Coruscant had given way to vast empty fields - massive empty tracks of land full of nothing, perfect for holding countless amounts of secrets.

"Well," Rey found herself saying before she could filter herself, "were you?"

Phasma lurched in her seat, and subsequently turned the wheel just a little bit. The Falcon, being as responsive as she was, immediately responded and veered off to the side, before being brought back to the correct lane.

"Tell me you did not say that," Phasma demanded, "Otherwise, you and I are going to have some problems, Rey."

"I already have a problem with you," Rey shot back, "It's called you getting him that job in the first place! You know, because that worked out  _really well._ "

The woman's jaw dropped and she took her eye off the road just long enough to glare past Poe, over at Rey. "You can't seriously be blaming me for this. Not you too."

"Why not?" Rey snapped. "You're the one who  _oh so helpfully_  suggested he work with Snoke."

"Uh, guys, maybe this isn't the best time to get angry with each other," Poe chuckled nervously as they edged dangerously close to the dividing rail between the two sides of the highway.

Phasma ignored him and replied, "You really think so little of me? Can you honestly tell me you think I would have done that if I'd known that this would happen?"

Rey's first instinct was to say  _yes,_  but finally, some of that famed black belt self-control asserted itself and she stopped herself from saying something almost unforgivable.

A minute later, Rey let out a long breath and said softly, "No. I know you wouldn't have." She paused, and grumbled, "I'm sorry, it's just-"

"It's Ben," Phasma nodded. "Yeah, I know. He's one of my best friends, so don't make the mistake of thinking you're the only one who cares about what happens to him."

They sat in awkward silence for a while before Poe started fiddling with a small console on the dash, coming dangerously close to pressing a button.

"Don't touch that!" Rey blurted out, seeing his fingers drift dangerously close to some of the more questionable buttons.

He cocked his head back at her curiously, and asked, "Why? What's it do?"

"I- I don't know, honestly."

Phasma looked over at it and said, in as disbelieving a tone as she could muster after the night they were all having,"You mean to tell me you've been driving around in this car that has the equivalent of a  _big red button_  on the dashboard and you don't know what it does?"

Rey shrugged, and explained, "Considering who the car used to belong to, I'm not sure I want to know."

"I don't like the way you said that. I  _really_  don't like it." Phasma's grip of the steering wheel seemed to solidify and meld together. "Rey, who's car was this?"

"Uh," Rey cleared her throat. "So, technically it belongs to Ben, but he didn't want to take it when his dad died, so I-"

"Holy shit," Phasma gasped, and she twitched uncomfortably, as if someone had just shocked her, "Are you telling me I'm driving Han Solo's car? Am I actually driving  _the_  Falcon right now? Rey, you're kidding, right?"

"Well...yeah. Is there any other?"

Even Poe seemed interested.

"I just thought you'd inherited some old car," Phasma mumbled, apparently to herself, "I thought you'd just called it the Falcon in honor of Ben's dad. I didn't think it was actually the real thing."

She seemed to pause to admire the car, a reverence in her bearing that was not there before.

"I think I'm missing something. What's so bad about that? Han was nice." Poe asked.

Rey scoffed. She was as emotionally attached to the man as anyone could be considering his particular personality quirks, but 'nice' had never been the first thing she'd think of when describing the late Solo.

"Look, I don't meant to sound offensive when I say you're clueless, but you are so freaking clueless you make me want to shake you. Clearly you never got to know old scoundrel," Phasma said ruefully. "Christ, this car is probably booby-trapped to hell. Just, don't press the fucking button. Hands  _off_ ," she demanded. "For all we know this piece of junk has some sort of self-destruct option."

"Oh come on," Rey rolled her eyes, "that's kind of an exaggeration, don't you think?"

Phasma scoffed. "Knowing what I know of Han Solo? I think I'd rather not take my chances."

* * *

Rey wasn't much one for GPS usage. She typically used the Falcon to drive only within Coruscant city limits, mostly to and from the university for her classes. She'd long since memorized the various routes to her friends' places, and she hadn't been on the highway since her driving lessons with Han, brief and terrifying though that instance had been. She was pretty sure getting in a street race with a pair of truckers on either side of them had  _not_  been in the plans, but plans had a bad habit of falling to pieces in Han's presence.

That said, the drive to Tatooine was pretty simple. It was mostly a straight shot on the interstate and by the time they were within a mile of their destination, Rey had perked up from her previously somnambulant state and was on the lookout for anything resembling a warehouse.

As they approached the destination in question, it became increasingly obvious that the 'old warehouse' they were looking for was not within immediate sight of the highway. Instead, they were directed to a side exit that veered off from the main road. It was hidden amongst the brushes clawing in from the breakdown lane, but they found it, and it struck Rey that she'd probably passed this same area on the way to the tournament months earlier.

If they hadn't been looking for it, they never would have noticed it.

Phasma pulled over, and slowed the Falcon down, and they slowly began their crawl through the street. It wasn't a full-sized street lane, and there was no hint of any exit road either.

They passed a single street sign, one demarking the road as Fire Lane 66.

Rey started rolling down the window in the back to get some air, just in time for a loud piercing shriek from some animal outside to reach inside and sink in their ears. She rolled the window back up almost immediately.

"Alright, so the creep factors' gone up by like a hundred," Poe said in a hush, "Anyone else feel like we just stepped into a horror movie?"

Neither Rey nor Phasma said anything in response .

The road extended a few hundred yards past the sign, before suddenly opening up to a large lot. Phasma rolled to a stop as she pulled into the sullen and beaten down dirt ground, the gray slab of the highway behind them.

The lot was immense, easily larger than city block. Off to the side was a small army's worth of cars, trucks, and other vehicles. Hundreds of cars were all crammed together in orthogonal rows and columns, with a street's width of space between each lane. There were no street lamps, but tall wooden stations similar to beach lifeguards had been erected, and strung between the two-story tall constructs were dozens of electric lamps.

Phasma shifted the car into first gear after a bit of struggling, and started crawling through the lot. The parking lot served as vanguard for the immense building behind it. It was an enormous beige construct, boxy in shape and topping at a massive multi-tiered gable roof. There were no lights on the outside of the building, but shapes and figures flickered through the light backdrops in the windows, lending the whole area an eerie vibe.

Rey was just about to comment on the lack of people outside - it was  _weird_  how quiet the outside of the building was, even if it was the dead of night - when a single point of illumination appeared in their window. A flashlight?

Phasma cursed under her breath before saying, "Just play along. Rey, get down."

Alarm surged through Rey. "Wait, what-"

But she'd already rolled down her window and the man with the flashlight came up to them. Rey could only see a faint hint of a traditionally handsome face and dark vest before she threw herself to the floor of the car. "Evenin' folks, " the man said, his voice a Southern drawl. "Catching it a little late today, ain't ya?"

Before Rey could even think to reply Phasma had already leaned out the window, and changed her own voice to match his, "This dumbass back here forgot the money, darling." She gestured back at Poe with a jabbed thumb, "It just wouldn't be an evenin' without risk y'know?"

She topped this off with a girlish giggle, and Rey tried not to gag.

The man outside seemed to chuckle at that. "Well, you're in luck, I think they haven't even finished up the first show. At least," the man turned his head to look over at the building, "usually it gets a lot rowdier when it does."

"Well, what's on the menu for tonight,  _daaaarling_?" Phasma wrung all the worth from the last word like a squeegee sponge.

Rey smacked the back of the chair in a vain attempt to let her know she was letting it on too thick.

But it seemed that  _thick_  was just the word to describe the intrepid guard. "Chosen One's defendin' his title again," the guard said. There was a hint of macabre cheer to his voice that made Rey want to shave her skin off. "Word's going round that he's finally getting ready to stop messin' around."

"Is he now?" Phasma cut in, "I don't suppose you could direct me and my steed to the closest spot then? I wouldn't want to miss out on all the fun."

The guard pulled away from the window, and Rey saw the flashlight motion as if directing someone a certain direction. "Down this way. One of the councilmen had to leave early for a family emergency, so you should see a spot pretty close for ya' pretty lady."

"Thanks sugar." Phasma blew a loud, wet kiss in his direction. "You're a doll."

Without further ado, she started the Falcon and drove away. Once they were a good few seconds away she turned to Rey in the back, and said, "Ok, you're good."

"What was that about?" she demanded, huffing as she pushed herself up from the floor. Just because she'd kept the Falcon relatively clean didn't mean she appreciated being told to effectively eat dirt.

"A husband and wife, showing up in the middle of the night, halfway through an event is a lot easier to explain than three black belts, cupcake."

Poe seemed to snap from his gobsmacked reverie. There was a strangled quality to his voice when he asked, "Husband?"

"In your dreams, Dameron," Phasma snorted.

"More like nightmares," Poe muttered.

"I can and do have time to kick your ass between here and the entrance, mutt," Phasma said, ever-so-sweetly and ever so ready. "Not like it'll take much."

"Guys," Rey interrupted for the second time that night, "Seriously? Quit it with the ego contest."

Both of them glared at each other for a few more seconds before they reached the parking spot. It was tight, and took more than a few attempts, but they managed to insert themselves between a tall pickup and a black-tinted sedan on the other side.

As they got out, Rey saw Poe bring out a backpack that he'd been keeping with him at the front. She was about to ask what the hell he was doing when he pulled out a screwdriver and started unscrewing the license plates off the Mercedes right next to them.

"Poe!" Rey hissed, before looking around and seeing if there was anyone approaching. "What are you doing?"

"It's like you've never seen a heist movie," Poe said, "You know they can track us by our plates right? I'm just gonna swap the Falcon's with theirs. We'll put the Falcon's plates in the trunk and we can swap 'em back when it's safe."

"What? But that's-"

"Only something seen in movies?" He grunted as he started twisting the other screw holding the plate there. "I'm not sure if you've been paying attention, but I'm pretty sure this whole situation is the kind of bullshit you only see in movies. Also, I really don't want to get arrested."

"So your solution is to jack someone else's plates?"

"Look, Rey, we don't know what the hell's going to happen tonight. If we get into any trouble, it's one less thing to track us by," Poe said, "Now keep watch, alright? I gotta' make the swap fast, otherwise this whole trip will end with all of us in a cell."

"Urgh." Rey looked down the lane to see the roving light of the guard from earlier, "Fine, but just know I'm doing this under protest."

"I'm sure they'll care about that when they catch you mumbling around in the dark," Phasma snorted. She'd stepped in front of Poe, blocking view of him from the guard, and was now fiddling with her...very nice-looking dress. How'd Rey not seen that before?

"What are you wearing?" Rey whispered to Phasma, as Poe moved to the Falcon started swapping the plates there. She wore a pale sterling fabric that looked like it was made of liquid silver, it didn't so much reflect light, as it did enrapture and tantalize it, and - if Rey was seeing this right - the woman also had makeup on. A light eyeshadow stare met Rey's inquisitive glance.

"A dress," Phasma said, "You should try it sometime. They make us look nice."

"I have dresses!" Rey said, "I just didn't think we'd need one. I thought this was supposed to be recon only?"

Phasma turned to fully face her in the dark. There was something flat and pitying in her gaze. "The point is to find out information on whatever the hell's been going on here." Her steel eyes flickered to the building behind them and back, "And despite everything, I know Snoke well enough to know that he's probably got a lot of money wrapped up in whatever he's doing, especially if he's been keeping it quiet for this long. Plus, people are a lot more likely to talk if I don't look like someone who wants to kick their ass."

"And what if we have to run?" Rey accused, now feeling woefully and incomparably underdressed.

"Then we're screwed." Phasma shrugged. "It's not exactly like we could escape a warehouse full of whatever's in there on our own. Unless you think you could just knock 'em all back by fluttering your eyelashes."

Rey was quiet for a moment, trying to think of what to say, before finally settling on, "One, you're a bitch. Two, how the hell am I supposed to get in then? I don't exactly have a change of clothes on me. Well, except for my work uniform."

Phasma gave her an appraising look up and down.

"Go put the uniform on."

After rolling her eyes, Rey muttered a few things Phasma apparently chose to ignore, and snatched her folded-up uniform out of the backseat.

"Okay, just, nobody come over here for a few minutes," she whispered.

She heard Phasma snort, "Cupcake, it's dark out here and neither of us are interested in what you have to offer. No offense. Plus, I don't think either of us are interested in getting into a fist-fight with Ben."

Rey grumbled a bit and finally walked out from behind the car in full uniform. Phasma tilting her head as if trying to see her from another angle, "Yeah, that's better. You might want to stand up a bit straighter though. And unbutton your top button or two. I think I have some lipstick I can lend you in my bag."

"The things women talk about," Poe said between clenched teeth holding screws, "when they think I can't hear them. Unbelievable."

Poe finished relatively quickly, making his way between the two cars to swap the front plates, all while Rey got treated to the sudden and unexpected experience of being Phasma's personal doll for a few minutes. By the time Poe stood up and dropped his backpack in the car, the Falcon was sporting a brand new pair of license plates and Rey had undergone a subtle but noticeable transformation.

"I look like a prostitute," Rey said flatly as Phasma came around and loosened her hair buns, fluffing her hair a not inconsiderate amount. She was looking at her reflection in the rear window of the Falcon. "I look like a 50's nostalgia-themed prostitute."

Her shirt had been untucked, the last few buttons undone so Phasma could tie the front.  _That_  wasn't so bad, but then, Phasma had smirked and undone the top two buttons as well, and embarrassingly enough, she'd insisted on adjusting Rey's bra straps. The end result was  _just_  enough to have scandalized most nuns. Had Rey shown up to the diner in a similar fashion, Maz probably would have cackled something about her getting better tips.

Phasma's lipstick had turned out to be a deep ruby red, and despite the situation Rey wondered if she could find out exactly where she'd gotten it, because damn if it didn't make her look good.

"I think they call them escorts, inside" Phasma said lightly. She was giving Rey a critical look that made Rey think of butchers and slabs of meat. "At least, I'm  _guessing_  that's part of this."

Rey's response was a half-hearted swipe at the taller blonde, but she stepped out of the way almost effortlessly. "If someone tries to buy my time, I will end you."

"You say the nicest things," Phasma said, "Honestly, I don't know what you're so worked up about. I work with what I'm given. It's really not my fault that Maz picked this uniform."

"I'm going to have to burn it after tonight. I literally won't be able to unsee this." Rey deadpanned. She turned to Poe, who was dusting his hands off, and checking his hair in the Mercedes window. "Please tell her this is ridiculous."

Poe just raised his hands in surrender. "I am literally the worst possible person to ask for opinions on how women should look. I think I've made that abundantly clear by now."

Rey glared at him, half-tempted to tell him what a coward's answer that had been.

Poe just winked.

A raucous cheer, almost mistaken for a thunderclap in its suddenness and intensity, echoed out from the building, startling all three of them as they turned to face it.

They were stalling, Rey realized. There was a jittery, nervous fog wrapped around the three of them, and the last few minutes had been their last refuge away from the insanity. Whatever good humor talking with Phasma and Poe had instilled in her vanished without a trace as she looked at the devil's manor and its den of sin and debauchery.

Or, maybe they were all mistaken, and people weren't getting beaten to shit within the building.

Rey looked around and spotted at least two vans that looked a little too similar to emergency vehicles. She walked up to one and stepped up on the access platform in the back and looked inside the mostly dark vehicle. After failing to discern the shapes inside, she turned on her phone flashlight and held it up against the back.

A fully kitted out emergency vehicle lay inside.

"Yeah, let's go," she said.

* * *

On reaching the building, Poe had seen that "warehouse" was a poor term to describe it.  _Fortress_  might have been better. It wasn't like the place had parapets or merlons or battlements, but the amount of people walking around outside on the outer walkways of the building, all dressed in the kind of suits and ties that would cost Poe a month's groceries  _at least_ , gave off the kind of impression that could best be summed up as "Go the fuck away."

Which really just made him want to get inside even more. When people told him not to do something, it just made him want to do that thing..

_Don't talk to that tall scary-looking dude, Poe. He looks like he'll beat you up._

That's how he met Ben.

_Don't mess with that Rey girl. She's got anger issues and nearly knocked another student out._

That's how he and Rey became friends.

...in retrospect, considering where he was, maybe the people who'd warned him of them had a point.

After Phasma failed to charm the man at the lone ground-level entrance with her feminine wiles, Poe took the opportunity to sidle up to the guard. He was tall, broad-shouldered and had the kind of mug only a mother or a very inebriated lover could find handsome, and it was only when Poe slipped him fifty in his very nice coat pocket that he even reacted to their presence.

"You fightin' or you watchin'?" the man communicated, somehow without moving his tectonic plate of a mouth. "Fighter's get in for free tonight. You get one free guest per fighter, but you gotta' pony up for any extras."

"I'm fighting," Poe said, shooting the man his most charming smile, which was pretty damn charming if you asked him, "The tall Barbie's with me."

He felt Phasma's stare quadruple in intensity as she began to bore a hole in his head, but Poe found that he didn't care. She'd probably get her pound of flesh out of him later, but it was like she'd told the guy earlier, a conventionally attractive male and female couple was much easier to explain than a trio of martial artists.

The guard's eyes seemed to look Phasma up and down before dismissing her as typical enough to belong before moving on to Rey.

"Um," Rey shuffled in place, reaching around and grabbing her arm from the back. Phasma had either procured some blush from somewhere or Rey was sporting a completely natural red tint. "Hi."

The guard didn't saw much of anything, but he did shift his weight, and Poe got the impression that was probably more human emotion than he'd been expecting to express that night.

Poe wagered that if Ben saw Rey like that, there was a very real chance the guy might just drop dead of a heart attack or, possibly, follow her home like a lovesick puppy. Not that that would have been a good thing, what with all the crap the guy had been putting everyone through, but it would definitely be the easiest way to solve this mess.

The guard grunted and turned around and punched a specific code into the number pad behind him. Poe tried to catch it, but the man was either aware of Poe trying to catch a glance or he was professional enough to try and hide it anyway. Either way, it was bad news. It meant that guy was trained in some way, and not just a thug.

"Ladies to the left," the man rumbled, fully opening his mouth this time. He had a strangely mellifluous voice, one that instantly garnered him a few points in Poe's book, but it was offset by his ridiculous overhanging brow. "Fighter to the right."

"Wait, we can't stay together?" Rey blurted out.

The guard frowned, and Poe could see the few dozen brain cells in his head try to work out why the hell the eye candy was talking.

"She's very attached, you see," Poe interjected, "My wife and I..uh well...we take  _very_ good care of her, if you know what I mean."

_I'm sorry Finn,_ Poe mentally apologized,  _I'll make it up to you later. I swear._

It didn't matter if Finn knew of his fake-dalliance with Phasma (which he didn't), but Poe was going to need a mountain's worth of cuddles afterwards to get past the sheer creep factor of everything around them. Rey and Phasma didn't seem too bothered by everything, but Poe liked to think he had a sixth sense for danger - it's what had led him to Ben and Rey and Master Luke's Dojang in the first place, and right now it was wigging out to a degree he'd never felt before.

There was blood in the air. He knew it was ridiculous, but part of him thought he could even smell it.

He could only hope the night ended with him and the girls in one piece. And with Ben back, maybe, if they were lucky.

The guard seemed to accept Poe's explanation after swiveling his tiny head between Rey, Phasma and him like a revolving lawn sprinkler. After a brief second where it looked like he was going to grab the walkie talkie that was attached to his hip - Poe had to exercise every ounce of self-control he had when that happened - the man instead relaxed and stepped aside, letting them through.

Poe didn't know what to expect when he walked in. Maybe something a little more grandiose than the ramshackle bleachers they were suddenly faced with. It was much louder inside than it had been out, and before Poe could even turn around and ask if anyone was supposed to come get them, the door shut, closing them in complete darkness.

"Jackass," Rey muttered.

Poe turned to see where he guessed she was. Rey had brought out her phone, and was lighting up the ground with her flashlight. "I thought he was rather nice, personally."

"I think she was talking about you, Dameron," Phasma said in her ever-so droll voice. Sometimes, he wondered if the woman had any other mode other than sarcastic bitch. "Did you  _seriously_  just imply that Rey was our escort for the evening?"

"I'll have you know I'm more of a smartass." Poe sniffed. "Jackassery implies I don't know what I'm doing. And...I think I implied that we're a threesome? Honestly I don't know, but it worked, didn't it?"

"I will break your arm," Rey said, crossing her arms in what was probably meant to be a threatening gesture but just came off a pouty with her current arm. "I swear, I know how to do that. Master Luke's been teaching us armbars and I will totally try it out on you if you ever speak of this again."

"Now baby, are we going to have to put you in a corner?" Poe recognized quickly that it was fear and mania speaking, not his actual thoughts, but Rey's indulgent and frankly innocent attitude was starting to get to Poe, and he wondered if bringing her really had been the best option. Despite his earlier thoughts, there was a good chance Ben would freak out if he ever saw Rey in this kind of place.

"I swear to god Poe, I'm going-"

"Children! You're both pretty, now kindly shut the fuck up," Phasma said, stepping in between the both of them. "Rey, get over it, we needed to get inside. Poe, I know it's hard, but for once in your life try using your head before opening your mouth. Now, what are we going to do? I know there's no one around right now, but I'm pretty sure they're expecting two people to come through down there, and one fighter to pop up."

Poe muttered something unkind and very uncharitable about his companions, before saying, "Well, it's obvious isn't it? I'll join the fighters."

Phasma's head whipped back and locked eyes with him. "Are you insane?" she hissed.

From beyond the wall there came the murmuring and thumping of either a really good party, or a hell of a rock show. Poe was no carpenter, but he could see what looked like the sound-proof vinyl sheets covering most of the walls and surfaces around them. It really said a lot that they could even hear an inkling of what was going on.

"Can you think of anything else?" he fired back, even as he rolled his neck around. He was dressed in comfortable black work slacks and a relatively decent button-up, but it was nothing compared to Phasma or even Rey. He'd picked the outfit for its comfort and mobility just as much for its look.

"I'm not going to let you get yourself killed out here," Phasma said, "I've got enough to deal with watching shortcake here, I can't take the chance you'll get injured. In case you forget, I'm the Master between the three of us. I'm the one who's gotta' be responsible, and it'd really help if you didn't test that."

Poe looked at her, feeling a calm sense of detachment from the situation that was almost sure to hurt later. He was touched though, that she actually gave a damn about his well being. He knew he wasn't the easiest of people to get along with when he got antsy, and the night hadn't been kind to either of them. "If Ben's here - if he's really fighting people and breaking bones and doing who knows what else...I've got to talk to him."

"Dameron, that's the worst thing you could do right now." Phasma stepped in close and seemed to try and intimidate him with her height. "You haven't seen him lately. He's...he's freaking  _scary._  If he's really involved in half the crap it seems he has, you might not  _get_  a chance to talk."

Poe smiled, even as he felt a weight left from his shoulder. "That's why I've gotta' do it. He's my friend."

"He's my friend too!" Phasma said, her true frustration finally showing, and Poe felt some of the tension ease from his body even more. "That's why I'm here. But come on man, think about this logically."

"I am," Poe said, wondering if he'd stepped into some sort of mental nirvana as much as he felt like the hallway on the right was an abattoir. "And my heart's logic is telling me Ben's not gonna' listen unless he can't run."

"Has it occurred to you that if  _he_  can't run away from the subject, you can't either?" Phasma turned and spat something at the floor. "Two people go in. One person leaves. Them's the rules. The house always wins. One way or another."

"What're you getting at?"

"What happens if you  _win?_ " Phasma asked, "If it comes down to a fight with him, what'll you do if you win?"

Poe took a moment to think that through. He caught Rey's eye. She'd been staring between the two of them worriedly, and he winking at her. "Apology milkshakes are always a good start."

"I- you- aaaargh!"

It seems that Phasma was well and truly fed up with him. Whatever else happened that night, Poe decided to mark it as a point of pride that he'd managed to drive her speechless even for a moment.

"I say let him try." Rey spoke up, finally.

"Rey?" Phasma said. She seemed shocked at her sudden turnabout.

"Poe's a good fighter," Rey said, nodding at him, which he returned gratefully. "If anyone can last against Ben, it's him."

"That was during a tournament-regulated  _spar_ , not in an goddamn underground fight club." Phasma pointed at the wall separating them from the main area, "Please don't tell me you think they're counting points in there - that people are bowing and shaking hands or that there's even a fucking referee in there!"

"I'm not stupid Phasma!" Rey said hotly, "I know this isn't anything like what we've dealt with before, but Poe's fought Ben before. He knows what he's like, and how he moves, regardless of what's on the table as far as legality. Besides, he's just going to talk with Ben, aren't you, Poe?"

"Of course," Poe agreed, "I don't exactly have a death wish. Pretty sure if I harmed a hair on his head you'd gut me like a fish anyway."

Rey groaned. "Dude, not now, okay?" She put a hand on Phasma's shoulder, prompting the taller woman to meet her stare, "He's our best shot right now. If Ben  _is_  here."

"He is," Phasma spat bitterly, looking aside, " _Chosen One's_  his nickname at the gym. I just thought it was because he was Snoke's favorite but now..."

Poe winced. He couldn't imagine what kind of mental pressure that put on a guy, to just be straight up outed as the local grandmaster's favorite. Too many people would vye for that position...and suddenly the bloodthirst that had been hovering around the guards was made imminently clear.

Everyone loved to see the best topple.

"Seriously, give me a shot," he said, feigning cheer he absolutely did not feel. "Who knows, maybe he'll get so scared of facing me again he'll forfeit."

The two girls looked at him and something that looked a little like pity flashed across Phasma's face before she sighed. "Fine. But you owe me something good for letting you do something this stupid."

"I'll autograph my picture for you," he said, and couldn't resist adding a wink.

"I said something good, not trash."

He just laughed and gave her the finger.

Poe opened his arms, and sure enough, a little Rey-sized rocket ran into his arms. "Be safe," she whispered.

He couldn't help but chuckle, and he wondered at what point he'd gotten so entrenched in the group that he'd willingly walk into hell's maw. He had no clue what was beyond the hallway they were in, and yet, he knew he'd do it for any of them. Finn, Rey, Luke, Ben - hell, even Phasma was kind of ok, once you got past the terminal case of perpetual bitch she had going on.

"I'll bring him back," he whispered back.

"Idiot," Rey angrily muttered, "You too. Finn'll give me hell if I let anything happen to you."

"My boyfriend's a softie," Poe murmured, pulling away, "Biggest teddy bear on the planet."

"Mmm, agree to disagree," she said, a mischievous smile on her face.

"Oh? Got any experience to say otherwise?"

"Just," Rey bit her lip, "Be careful. You didn't see Ben when he was with Snoke. He was just...sad. Broken."

Poe looked at her carefully before nodding. Rey was more observant than most people gave her credit for, and if she said something about Ben was off (as if the whole freaking secret building and hidden road wasn't enough) then he was going to be damn sure to be mindful of it.

"Well….I'm off."

He turned and walked into the pitch darkness of the hall that would lead him to the group of fighters looking to topple Kylo Ren, the Chosen One.

* * *

The main area was packed.

When Rey and Phasma walked out of their side of the hallway, they were greeted to what could probably have passed as a stadium, if the place had been anywhere approaching legal. Bleachers and stands lined the sides of the building, vast and incomprehensible in enormity. Seats began as low as ground level and rose as high up three stories. There was a large dome-like object in the center, but Rey was too far away to tell for sure what it was. Support pillars between the flooring and the staging held up the ceiling above them, and if Rey looked up it almost looked like the night sky had been blotted out, replaced with a panorama of enormous television screens showing a series of numbers that were incomprehensible to her. It certainly wasn't the time, as the numbers were constantly adjusting themselves.

"Those are betting odds," Phasma muttered to Rey, seeing where she was looking, "Guess we know how Snoke's paying for all of this."

"Is it really just him?" Rey asked, seeing the warehouse full of the well-dressed and well-to-do. She was reasonably sure the waitstaff that were walking around taking orders and bringing bottles of champagne each wore a suit that cost more than twice her monthly rent. "This seems...excessive."

Phasma's laugh was jaded and worn. It seemed she still hadn't gotten over Poe's willingness to face Ben. "You've never trained under the man. He'd never settle for second best. This is exactly the kind of crap he'd go for."

Phasma seemed shaken. Had Poe's decision really rattled her that much?

"Well come on, then," Rey jabbed an elbow into her side, "Let's investigate."

Investigate, as it turned out, involved her and Phasma getting corralled into a row with two  _very_  affectionate drunk men in Armani suits, along with a stauntly poised woman who was dressed in a lavish blood-red dress. The woman had been eyeing Phasma appreciatively, and it was when Rey had undone her next button that they finally got invited over.

"So tell me dearies," the woman said, in a voice as gaudy as the necklace she wore, "how long's it been since your last visit?"

Rey's mouth suddenly went dry. "Oh, you know how work goes," she repressed the wince as she remembered what she looked like, "weeks. Months I think."

" _Reeaaally_ now?" the woman said, a glint of interest forming in her expression. Rey tried to ignore the looks both she and several other men in the area were shooting her. "I could never stay away that long. There's just something so...vivid about these gatherings."

The woman's face turned...well,  _hungry_  would not have encompassed the sheer lust that shone in her expression.

"How long has this been going on anyways?" Rey asked, trying to keep her voice casual. Phasma was still looking around, eyeing everything with the kind of hawkish and analytical gaze she'd seen the woman get during their first meeting. She was weighing everyone up, evaluating them and drinking in all the information she could. Rey couldn't do that - the whole thing was almost too overwhelming for her senses, and so she had to focus on pumping the people around them for information, despite each of them undressing her with their eyes.

_Ugh._

"Oh my, I don't know, years?" the woman procured a fan from her cleavage (seriously, how cheesy could this skank get?), "Alistair's always been a dear  _dear_  friend though, and when he invited us, why I just could not pass up the chance to see the show of a lifetime. And really, once we saw his student I just... _Mmm."_

She was bragging. Bragging as….flirtation?

The woman actually fanned herself, and for a single unexplainable instance Rey wondered if this bitch could be related to Rose's old roommate, Carmen. There had to be a limit to how stupid and vapid some people could get. Surely evolution would have wiped  _that_  out of the gene pool ages ago.

Phasma tapped Rey subtly on the shoulder and Rey faced her.

"There," she pointed, and Rey watched her gesture down to the center.

What she'd thought to be a dome was actually a ring. From her vantage point in the stands she could see a little better.

There was a large hexagon dug at least ten feet into the ground. The dome turned out to be a large spherical cage, covering the top of the ring. She could see the wire mesh held up by various ropes so it wouldn't collapse inwards.

"Sorry, it was really nice to meet you," Rey excused herself, urging Phasma to follow her, "We just- we saw someone we know. Um, over there."

They didn't wait long to see if their excuse was bought. They rushed down the stairs they'd taken and started making way to the dome.

Smells and sounds and sights assaulted Rey's senses, and it was all she could do not to grab her head from the mind-splitting ache that was quickly forming. Alcohol and jeering and the sight of ebony black mixed with snow white on everyone's perfect  _perfect_  suits threatened to swallow Rey and it was only holding on to Phasma's hand that grounded her.

The question remained.

_Where was Ben?_

Suddenly an explosion of noise went off in the warehouse and Rey had to let go of Phasma's hand and clasp her ears lest she go deaf from the sudden sonic onslaught.

"Shit," Phasma said, somehow loud enough for Rey to overhear her, "they're starting another round."

"No, wait-"

"Let's find a spot in the bleachers," Phasma said, all business and cold as ice, "We'll stand out if we just stand in the aisle like this."

Her hand reached out and grabbed Rey by the forearm, and she pulled, only to meet resistance from Rey.

Because Rey had finally found Ben.

On each and every one of the screens, blown up to lifesize like some greek statue, was the no-longer immaculate face of Ben Solo. He bore his scar not with pride, but with power and grace befitting a lion. The stitches were holding taut, though even on screen Rey could see the pulsing and dribble of crimson from his cheek, likely from adrenaline. He was shirtless, and though Rey would usually never mind the sight, she never would have wished for it in such a circumstance.

He wore medical gauze, tightly wrapped around his abdomen, and even with that, she could see the rapidly forming bruise on his chest. He wore the lower half of his dobok, and was barefoot as he walked into the ring from some underground tunnel.

Rey wanted to run to the cage.

Run to it and scream at him that she was there. That she was there to bring him back. She was stopped by Phasma and by the sheer cacophony of people as they all stood and started waving and stomping.

"It's like a freaking circus in here," Phasma growled, forcibly pushing aside a group of people as they all started slamming on the floor, sending littly small quakes and vibrations up through Rey's body.

"We need to get him out of there," Rey found herself saying once she had her voice back, "Phasma, he's in danger."

"In case you've forgotten,  _so are_   _we_ ," Phasma pulled her close and practically palm struck an entrepreneuring man in a bowtie, "Or have you not been paying attention to the people watching us?"

That sent a nasty little flutter of evil butterflies in her stomach.

"What?" Rey started looking around.

"On the catwalk.  _No-_  don't look up," Phasma whispered harshly, right in her ear, "We're drawing attention somehow. I think they recognize me."

"Because you work for Snoke?"

"Probably," Phasma said grimly, "Dammit. I should've thought this through. There's a reason they never let me know about all of this, and I'm guessing someone's finally clued in to the fact that I'm here."

"Then...then let's wait," Rey said, hating herself, "If we act like normal… _guests,_  then they have no reason to come get us. Besides, there's still Poe."

"A lot's riding on Dameron talking some sense into  _Kylo_ , you know." Phasma said. There was something hurt and spiteful and bitter, in her voice and Rey realized something very important.

_Phasma_  had wanted to be the one to talk to Ben. She'd been just as hurt by this apparent betrayal as she'd been by Snoke's.

"He's Ben," Rey said instead, choosing to avoid  _that_  landmine. "His name is  _Ben Solo_  and it always will be."

Phasma met her defiant stare with something weary and afraid. "I hope you're right, Rey. I really do."

* * *

Poe didn't know what to think of the tunnel he'd been ushered through when he took the hallway from the entrance. It was dark and it reeked of the kind of scent you only got from shifty bus stations and alleys people didn't normally walk down. He came upon a door that led to a room full of angry, brutish looking men, all sporting the same general look.

Shirtless, spandex shorts, barefoot, and all either bald or with their hair buzzed so low they might as well be. Poe was the only one who looked like he'd just come in from the street.

Some people in white dress shirts and dark pantsuits stood at the entrance he just came in, and they offered him a single piece of paper, which only had a single number five in bright red ink.

"Please wait until your number is called," one of the workers told him. He sounded as serene and peaceful as a monk, and Poe repressed the instinctive shiver from hearing those words. "We're doing a random lotto tonight."

"How long in between fights?" he asked. Might as well get an idea how long he was going to be waiting.

"Depends on how fast the competitors can finish," the man said. "Our master has given us no strict limits for this evening beyond the mandate: Everything must be barehanded."

Poe swallowed, and he felt the pressure as several of the fighters seemed to eye him. "Is it ever not barehanded?"

The guy smiled, and Poe realized he had a brand new nightmare to add to his list. No human smile should show so much  _teeth_.

"Our master has decreed: Weapons shall be integrated soon."

"Gotcha'. Weapons soon.," Poe said. He put his fist up in a flimsy cheering gesture. "Right on."

Someone nearby snorted. "Who the hell invited this guy?"

"Must be fresh meat," another said. There was something gravely and hoarse in that voice and Poe had a feeling it was not a natural thing, "You know the guests like to bring in their own fighters."

"Hmph. I give him ten seconds before Kylo takes him down."

"Oi!" Poe called out, annoyed, "I'm right here, y'know?"

That seemed to bring all the attention back to him. For a moment he thought they were going to swarm him, and he truly questioned his own sanity. What kind of fool was he to drag himself out here to the middle of nowhere, and put himself in a room full of hostile, potentially roided out battle-hungry maniacs?

Ah. Right. He was here for his friend.

_Ben, I swear to god man, you are_ so  _gonna owe_   _me after this._

Poe felt his body fall into an instinctive fighting position, even if it was one of the worst things possible for him to do. One of the first rules of de-escalation was to never look like you were afraid. Fear made you look weak.

"Red Five!" A loud barking voice came from the other end of the room, "Red Five! You're up!"

Poe looked down at his stub. A red number five shone in the lame artificial light.

"Sorry guys," he said, feigning all the cockiness he definitely did not feel, "Guess it's my lucky day."

More than one of the fighters snorted.

He walked through the makeshift hall of eager battleborn warriors, and noted that the area was a locker room. Finally, he came to a door, a plain, oak thing, from which hung a single speaker above.

"Uh, Red Five presenting?" he said, hoping his immediate nervousness wasn't present. He wondered how they checked that.

The door unlocked, and there seemed to be an audible hiss as it creaked open.

This was stupid. This was really  _really_  monumentally stupid. On the list of some of the most stupid things he'd ever done, this was right at the very top, easily beating out the time he'd egged on a rabid dog to save his neighbor's kid when he was in ninth grade. He'd almost killed himself just trying to outpace the mad thing, and probably had dodged death three times just by weaving in and out of traffic trying to lose it.

Ben was beyond that door. And someone needed to talk sense into him.

_You are not nearly pretty enough to warrant all this crap, Solo._  Poe inhaled and exhaled, and decided to remove his shirt.

He dropped his eggshell shirt, which had started to soak through at the armpits with sweat, and without further ado, he stepped beyond the opening in the door.

The door snapped shut with a force that was completely unwarranted. The hallway - and it was a hallway he was in - was clean, and empty of anything denoting human presence. Sterile. Come to think of it, the locker room had been absurdly clean as well. The smell of cleaning product and bleach were the only things keeping him company.

There were no lights in the hallway. The only source of light was at the end of the tunnel, and it  _was_  a tunnel. At some point in his walk he must have gone underground.

Seeing no other way except forward, Poe walked, choosing to discard his shoes in the hall.

He came out to a ring. Or something that could only be called a ring in the loosest sense of the word.

It was a fucking  _cage._

_Fuck._

There was a dome of metal wire and mesh above them, a crashing of noise from above that he realized was human voices, distorted by emotion and quantity. The ring was massive, easily thirty feet across, end-to-end. It seemed to be in the shape of a...hexagon? A strange shape, considering eight sides was considered the magic number for these sorts of places, but Poe guessed that nothing was normal with this place.

And of course, waiting for him was Ben Solo.

Poe hoped the shock on his face was a good thing.

"Heya Ben," Poe said, opting for a jaunty wave.

"Poe," his friend said, eyes wide and amazed, as if he couldn't believe Poe were there. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Poe cracked his neck, and tried not to let the mounting crescendo building up outside get to him. He had no idea how people were watching them, but he guessed some cameras were involved. If he showed any inkling of backing down, things were liable to get bloody.

Of course, if Poe couldn't convince Ben to leave, then things were going to get bloody anyway.

"Just hanging around," Poe said, falling down onto one knee and starting to stretch. "Met this guy the other night. Told me all about this place. Kinda' looked like someone had gone to town on him, though."

"Poe," Ben said, eyes switching between something above them and then back, "You shouldn't have come here man."

"Of all people, you  _really_  don't have the right to say that to me," Poe fired back, starting to hop from foot to foot. His heart was beating at a million per minute and for the first time, true doubt flurried into his heart. Ben...well, Ben looked at ease in this place.

Oh, he was still nervously looking up and back to Poe, as if worried that some great big bird of prey might come and snatch Poe up, but Ben looked completely fine with being there himself despite the fact that he was shirtless and beat to hell and ready to dish out pain on whatever idiot thought to challenge him.

"You don't get it," Ben muttered across, seeming to alternate between bringing his arms up in some strange stance, "You don't- you don't just get out of this place."

"It kinda' seems like you do, Benny boy," Poe shot back, feeling some residual fire begin to push through his own control, "You've been doing this for...what? Weeks? Months?  _Years?"_  He huffed as he stretched his arms. "You can't tell me that you've been here this long and you haven't just wanted to walk away. Not unless you enjoy it.."

"I  _don't!_ "

The face of the man who showed up at the clinic flashed through Poe's mind.

"Yeah," Poe muttered, "do you really think I believe that?"

"Well what am I supposed to do then?!" Ben howled, and  _there_  it was.  _There_  was the famous hellfire that people had warned him about. Poe had seen it come out in spars often enough, but it had always been controlled. It was a deep, intrinsic part of Ben, a hostility that was a boon to anyone in the ring- pit-  _cage_  they were in.

But Poe had seen that fire and faced it before.

"Come with me then," he said simply, standing up straight, and offering his hand. "Look, I don't know what I'm doing half the time, and I barely have an idea of what I'm doing  _now_ , but I know this: We miss you. I miss you. Master Luke misses you."

Ben flinched, and hope surged in Poe's chest that he was getting through to the man.

"Rey misses you. So much, man."

Ben's rage, that beautiful yearning passion that had once attracted Poe to the man like a moth to the flame, seemed to falter, as if someone had put a stopper to the gout of torrenting emotion.

"I-"

"FIGHT!"

The sound struck Ben as if it had been a physical blow. He flinched, stepped back, and looked around, madly, like a hunted man on the run from some flying demon.

"You have to get out of here, Poe. Whatever you came for, you're not getting," Ben said, his eyes clouded once more, voice dead and shattered. He jerked his head beyond him. "Use my locker room. I'll have them send the next person in."

White hot lava erupted in Poe's chest then.

"Will you just listen to me!?" He roared, and he tried not to let too much of his own anguish bleed into it, "I came here for  _you_ , and I'm not leaving without you, Ben."

"My name," Ben breathed and exhaled, "is Kylo Ren."

"Like hell it is!"

"Just...leave. Please -  _leave._ "

All around them Poe could feel it - the chanting, the murmurs, the shouts, the pounding rhythmic beats of a crowd that wanted a fight between two idiots hellbent on putting the other down.

This was what Ben put himself through? A bloodthirsty crowd and the fickle pleasures of countless heathens and monsters? For what?

Ben had turned his back on him, but Poe wasn't going to let him do that for long.

He advanced.

* * *

Rey saw it happen in slow motion.

Poe entered the ring from the side opposite where she sat with Phasma. At some point or another he'd taken off his shirt and his shoes. He actually looked a little like Ben did, though his pants didn't have the practicality and maneuverability of Ben's dobok pants.

They talked for a bit, but she couldn't tell what they were saying. The building was too loud to let her hear them, but whatever they said - whatever Poe said - it was clearly working.

For a single moment, when she saw Poe offer his hand to Ben on the side of the ring, for a single wondrous moment, she thought he'd done it.

And then that voice came. Snoke's voice.

That evil, vile monster's voice came through, like a foghorn, dragging Ben from his waking reveries back into the throes of a nightmare's grasp. She couldn't tell what he said to Poe, but she could see the despondence, the misery, and the agony of two friends staring at each other from across a chasm that neither could breach on their own.

She saw Ben turn around and start walking back, and she saw Poe run forward.

Something tweaked in Ben - some ingrained instinct that would probably serve him well.

Something triggered.

The rising of his shoulders, the sharp inhalation of breath, and then the reflexive chambering motion that Master Luke had made them practice for hours if not days on end.

His foot came up in a chamber, and, before anyone could think, it shot out with all the force of a meteor's strike.

Poe had the good sense and reaction to bring up his hand in a block.

Ben's back kick met Poe's arm and even if it was impossible to hear it, Rey heard the single defining  _snap_  of a broken arm.

A loud harried cry rose up from the ring, and the crowd cheered.

Before she could even think of what she was doing she leapt down the stairs in twos and threes and pushed, threw,  _punched_  people out of the way. Most were on their feet, yelling, demanding and pleading for more, like hope-begotten beggars eager for a blood and bruises instead of food and salvation.

She reached the cage in less than ten seconds.

"Ben!" she shouted, looking down at the pit below. Poe was on his side, writhing, crying as he cradled his arm, howling a flurry of words she couldn't make out and Ben stood over him, a patently unique look of pure horror on his face. "Ben!"

"Hey!" someone said, "Get away from the cage!"

She swiveled out of the way of the grasping hands that came from nowhere. And decided  _to hell with it._  She sprinted back, out towards the exit. She may have run by Phasma - she didn't know - she didn't care.

Rey ran back to the hallway where the three of the had split ("Stupid!  _Stupid!_ ") and kept going, meeting a door and running right through it. She was dimly aware of it being a locker room of some sorts, full of people, but she didn't care. Unimportant, terrible people. She needed to get to her friends.

She sprinted down the length of the room, ducking underneath one giant's wide-sweeping grasp for her, and eventually came upon a door.

"Let me in!" she demanded, looking at the speaker hanging above the door. "I know you're watching! Let me  _in!_ "

One second. Then two seconds. Then ten.

Finally, when it looked like she was going to have to start beating her fists against the door herself, it creaked open with a malevolent hiss. She pulled the door open and vaulted inside.

She passed a hallway and came upon the ring.

Poe was there, cradling his arm, glaring up at Ben, and muttering something painful and litanous in its fervor.

And Ben was there too. Bruised, terror-struck, and lost.

The crowd was cheering. The force of it all hit her harder than any of Plutt's fists ever had. A delighted, happy, and snickering thing that reach inside Rey's voice and choked her lungs.

Within the span of seconds, Rey realized what she'd done, and her chest heaved as the air left her lungs all at once.

For better or worse, she'd stepped into the cage, offering herself up as a sacrificial lamb.

Moments later, she realized Ben Solo was staring at her, frozen in horror while the crowd around them demanded her blood.

It seemed like he couldn't believe she was there, and when reality finally hit, the deeply-pained look he wore said he'd just woken up in his own worst nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A badly-timed truth, and a total eclipse.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> Attack: Hang on tight, and trust us.
> 
> Onfire: We're in for a bumpy ride folks, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	35. Black Belt, Second Stripe, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder before anyone starts reading. This is darker than you might be used to with this fic but neither Onfire nor I believe it would ever be in Ben's character (at least in this fic) to ever hurt Rey, and we simply aren't interested in writing that. We're picking up right where we left off.
> 
> We're currently planning to have Chapter 36 posted 8/23.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


" _Rey_ ," he choked.

The lactic burn in her chest hurt and mingled with the crack forming in her heart, and for a moment she was too consumed by the voluminous air that seemed to expand and contract around her head as she looked upon the scene.

The crowd's clamorous voice pressed down on them like heavy rain. It pounded into Rey's skin ceaselessly, an almost physical entity on its own, and she wondered if the sick feeling in her stomach was from it or the sight before her.

"Rey," Ben said again, "What are you doing-"

He stopped and seemed to realize something and looked down at Poe, who was swearing up a storm and making up words to keep up with his own mouth.

"Of course." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "You came here together."

Ben's eyes seemed to cloud over when he said that. His voice, once so soft and wonderful and all she would need to drift into a peaceful sleep, drove thumbtacks into her ears. It was practical. Dull. A cloudy sky on a drab dusty day would have had more emotion.

Ben let out a put-upon sigh, and seemed to slump in place as his shoulders lowered in what was probably meant to be a non-threatening gesture. She could see the reticence in him still. The way he moved. The way he stood. Ben moved like a man sentenced to the gallows.

"Rey," he breathed, "take Poe and get out of here."

Finally the breath seemed to return to her lungs, and all she could ask him was a simple, befuddled, " _What?_ "

On the ground, Poe was breathing hard. His voice was coming in sharp, spittling gasps.

"Fuck... _off_...Solo," he strung out between each breath, "You're coming...with us."

There was some strange humming rising from the tenebrous ocean of voices above and around them. It reminded Rey of being surrounded by bees. She'd gone on a trip to an apiary in high school once, and the feeling of being surrounded, surrounded and evaluated and judged worthy or unworthy by thousands of insects, uncaring and apathetic in regards to most everything, was unforgettable. They didn't care who she was. They just wanted what she could give them.

It took Rey a second, but the oily and well-known dread she'd felt returned with a vengeance. It was like the world had turned on its axis and suddenly what was right was now  _wrong_. So very wrong.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said, taking a single shaking step further into the ring.

There was a pulse from the pits' walls, as the crowd began to pound the ground above them. They were...pleased?

"What?" Ben seemed stupefied at her admission. "What are you talking about? Rey, you need to-"

"Shut.  _Up."_

The placidity that graced his face wavered.

"Heheh...heh." Poe laughed from his position on the ground. He'd somehow managed to lift himself up into a half-kneeling, half-sitting position that didn't leave him prone on his back, and facing the both of them. "In for it now... _fuck..._ "

As if on cue, he seemed to shudder and rack forwards with pain as he brought his arm close to his chest.

"You need to get him out of here," Ben said, averting his eyes from her. He took a sort of strained half-step to help Poe before he stopped. Even from her vantage point, she could see the thick, hard swallow he made before taking a step back. "He needs to-" He shot another haunted look up and around them, "-he needs to get that looked at."

Rey had already started moving by his second word. She reached Poe with quick, purposeful steps, and crouched down.

"Poe," she said, grabbing his uninjured arms shoulder, "Poe, I'm here."

Poe turned to see her. There was awe in his stare and she could see the tiny pinpricks of his pupils as he seemed to look at her, through her, and at everything around her all at once. His face had turned a sickly pale and should could feel the cold sweat and shake.

"Heya Rey," Poe said, voice wheezy. "Hey there. Ben's here. Would ya- would ya let him know..."

His voice trailed off as he let out a low keening noise that did not sound human.

"C'mon," she said, spreading her stance, and hefting his left arm, over her shoulder. Poe let out a moan. "C'mon, let's get you out of here."

There was an undercurrent of something else from the crowd. Low and sibilant and smoky. She was tempted to stop and listen, to find out what other deviant desire those innumerable voices wanted of them, but she followed her inner logic first. She could worry about the other, smaller monsters later. For now, her friends needed her.

"Hey Rey...tell Ben...tell him..."

"Hey, it's ok," she cooed, as she got him to his feet. Her stomach nearly revolted on seeing Poe's arm, bent at a nauseating and unnatural angle. "I've got you. Come on, bud, let's get you out of here."

Ben just stood to the side, watching them.

"Well," she yelled, willing herself to not cry just yet, "are you going to just stand there!?"

She saw a microreaction start to form but it was gone before she could make sense of it.

There was a motion. An ambiguous twitch of his foot and body once again, as if he was unsure he  _should_.

"Rey, I-" He seemed torn. Conflicted.

She suppressed a sob with the patient brushfire that had ignited in her heart on seeing him. She could feel Poe tense suddenly, perhaps unconsciously at the prospect of having Ben so close again. "No, nevermind, just...stay away." She saw his hesitant expression and felt Poe shudder, a full body convulsion that nearly shook her balance. "Stay  _away,_  Ben."

He looked stricken.

"It doesn't matter," he mumbled instead. Every bit of him seemed to tremble with the desire to do  _something_. "I couldn't help him anyways. Even if he wanted me to. It's-it's against the rules."

The laughter seemed to come in pulses now. She could hear cheers amongst the crowd, vulgar, descriptive things and demands for more, more,  _more._ There was a ritualistic thumping that seemed to press in on all sides, and for a second Rey was reminded of the basement beneath Plutt's house. Of the stomp and thumps and crashes of a man who hated her and only looked at her like something he could exploit.

Poe groaned, and his legs almost gave out, nearly dragging her to the floor with him. His right arm flopped uselessly to the side, and she could hear him try to say something in wheezy breaths.

She looked at Ben, the man who'd done this to her -  _their -_ friend and said the first thing that came to mind. "Fuck your rules Ben!"

There was a hiss and after a second she heard the ring-entry door down the hall open. Even through the blinding lights hanging from the cage above them - even through the deafening roar of demands threatening to blow her eardrums to kingdom come, Rey both saw and heard Phasma open the door wide, shouting, "Rey! Bring him here!"

Glaring at Ben, because if she did anything else she was liable to just snap, Rey started coaxing Poe forward. Slowly, almost drunkenly, he began to walk, and each step brought another hiss of pain from her friend - her foolish, cocky friend, who'd stepped into the great unknown all in the hopes of saving the man who'd done this to him.

"It hurts," he admitted, pitifully, halfway down the hall, "Shit.  _Fuck_. It hurts."

He wasn't crying, but Rey almost wished he would. It would make the unspilled tears in her eyes feel a lot less lonely.

"Almost there," she cooed. The noise and pressure of the crowd behind them felt distant, here in the hallway between damnation and salvation. The walls were coated in something soft and empty and lonely, as if purposefully designed to swallow any sound, and that just made Poe's wretched desperate gasps sound louder.

"Rey," he said, seeming to realize her presence once more. "I- I'm sorry. I couldn't do it Rey."

Her throat felt thick and solid as she heard his pitch. "It's okay," she whispered, and looked forward. Phasma was looking back and forth between them and something behind her, hidden out-of-view by the door. "You tried. It's okay."

It wasn't okay, but that was through no fault of Poe's. But if she said it, even if he didn't remember, she'd never forgive herself. Poe hadn't done anything wrong.

She gulped and hoped her sudden tightened grip on his shoulder wasn't noticeable, or any more painful. "You're gonna' be okay."

That was  _hope_  speaking. Or maybe desperation. Past a certain point the two kinda looked the same.

They reached the door. Poe practically collapsed into Phasma's arm on crossing the threshold, and his pitiful yelp when he did tugged the already discordant strings of Rey's heart. Phasma seemed to have expected it, and in one smooth motion that would have made Rey envious any other time, easily slipped Poe's good arm over her own.

"Come on, Dameron," she muttered, "Come on. The doctor's gonna' fix you up straight, you'll see."

There was another person in the room: a squat, bored-looking man with a squashed face, wearing scrubs the color of tree bark.

Rey looked around, and noticed the room was smaller than the one she'd passed to get to the ring. The ceiling was low compared to the hallway they'd been in, maybe a little over seven feet tall, and as a result it felt unnaturally cramped. It was maybe the size of a small living room, with a single locker in the corner and a punching bag that hung from a short chain in the other. There was a bunch on the side, with what looked like a cot right next to it. Occupying the rest of the room was a mirror, a sink, and counter that stretched five feet end to end. The counter had a variety of bandages and what seemed to be wraps placed alongside it.

Off to the side was a door, just as nondescript as the one she'd walked in. Of course, hanging above the door was a speaker, but unlike in the other waiting room, she could see no room for a camera of any kind.

The weight of her decisions started to manifest in her mind, and Rey stopped herself from shaking by grabbing the door knob to the exit leading back out into the cage.

"Rey, close that door, alright?" Phasma called back, helping Poe situate himself on the cot. "This guy said he's not going to do jack until the door's closed."

Rey looked between her friends - her wonderful amazing friends who'd braved this madness with her willingly.

"I'm going back out there," someone said. After a moment, Rey realized it had been her.

"What!" Phasma turned, incredulous. "Are you serious? No wait, I know you are. Let me rephrase: Are you  _crazy?"_

Seeing Phasma's concern seemed to solidify something, some ephemeral decision that Rey had been waiting to make.

"I have to try."

There was someone else using her mouth, and Rey wanted to either shake or kiss them. That person was either brave or stupid or some mixture of the two. In any case, Rey realized that, in a way, she'd made the decision long ago, before even stepping foot into this hellhole. She'd just needed the safety net of running taken away for her to realize it. "It's Ben. I have to try."

Phasma let out a noise not too dissimilar to a frustrated jackal. "Is everyone around me insane?! First Poe runs headlong into a fucking back kick, and now you're wanting to do the same?"

"Ben didn't mean to do that," Rey said instantly, and she knew it as intrinsically as she knew her own heartbeat. "Ben just reacted. Snoke...Snoke's done something to him. To make him like this."

"Rey," Phasma said, as weary as Rey had ever seen her, "I get it, alright. I  _know_  Ben didn't mean to do it, but….he's not right in the head at the moment. You can see that - I know it! Come on, the smart thing to do is to back off."

It  _was_  the smart thing to do. Rey could acknowledge that. She also acknowledged that she'd never been that smart to begin with. At least not when it came to Ben.

The man in dark scrubs stood in the corner, smiling and looking expectantly at Rey and the door, waiting for her decision.

"Rey," Poe stuttered, and the two of them looked to him. He hadn't let himself be pushed to lie down on the cot. "Tell B-Ben..."

Rey nodded and craned her neck, trying to catch his bumbling whisper.

"...tell him to piss off and come home already."

Exultant affection for her friend filled Rey, and she wondered if it was pride or laughter bubbling up inside her. Poe's proclamation was a single point of light in what had already become the worst evening in her life.

"See?" Rey couldn't help but add, if a little cheekily. "Even Poe agrees with me."

Phasma's rebuttal was clipped and perfunctory. "Poe just got his arm broken. Do you really think he's in any way to think straight?"

Poe's response was a mad giggle followed by a sullen and moaning, " _Bitch."_

Phasma sighed, seeming to realize a lost cause when she saw one. "I'm surrounded by idiots."

"Yeah, but you love us anyway," Rey replied back, and she wondered when talking with Phasma had gotten so easy.

"Don't press it, cupcake," she snorted, before looking at their creepy overseer. "Go. I'll watch over Poe. Just...be careful."

Rey swallowed and hoped the quiver in her voice wasn't too obvious.

"I will."

She stepped back out into the hall, and watched as the door to Ben's locker room shut in on itself at an agonizingly slow pace, the mechanisms and locks making audible clicks as they worked into place.

Shivering, she turned and started walking back. Her arms itched uncomfortably in the suddenly cool air, and it was only then that she realized she was still wearing her trussed up work uniform. The steady thrumming throes of the audience increased in intensity with every step closer to the cage, and she had about a single breath's worth of preparation before she stepped out into the ring one more time.

Ben was there, facing the opposite hallway. Though he was over fifteen feet away, seeming to await his next opponent impatiently with crossed arms and a tapping foot, she could see the mark on his back - the insignia of his demented master and everything he stood for.

A single hexagonal shape, perched perfectly between his shoulder blades, about the size of a large stone. Caged within the hexagon was a circle with sixteen rays pointed inwards. She could see it so clearly because the mark stood out on his back, an angry and hellish red in contrast with his pale skin.

It made her want to vomit.

The noise seemed to rise as she stepped out of the alcove. She could hear cheers and cries of dismay as she walked out to face their champion once more.

Ben spun on hearing the rising chorus, and whatever color he'd regained between her absence and arrival drained out of his face. "I thought you left," he said dumbly.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said, partly surprised she didn't stumble over her own words. The pressure, without Poe's comforting and distracting presence, was unnerving. She could feel thousands of eyes pierce her, analyze her, evaluate her worth and find her wanting with every passing second.

"Rey, you need to leave," Ben pleaded, shooting nervous glances over his shoulder, "The next guy's coming any second now. They don't care who's in the ring when they get here - they only care that they're the last ones standing."

"Yeah," Rey couldn't help herself from spitefully firing back, "You would know wouldn't you?"

He ran his hand through his hair. "I don't have time for this! You're in danger!"

He advanced towards her, only to stop midway. A strangled noise escaped him as he looked her up and down.

"What?" she said, looking down at herself.

"What the hell are you wearing?" his face was ash-white as he asked, and it was that sentence, perhaps that spurred her on.

"What about it?"

"Why're you-" he shook himself before a tint of red replaced his previous pallor, "Never mind, it's not important. Rey, you need to  _go._ "

"Why? So you can beat the next guy up?" she retorted, feeling everything - all the lies, all the evasions, all the inexpert dodges he'd performed to keep this all a secret from them - finally come into focus. "Is that why you don't want me here? You don't want me to see you beat the shit out of someone?"

He was still seeing her as just a child.

"You don't understand," he said, but he'd stopped walking towards her. The crowd was getting rowdy again. "You're in danger."

"I'm not going  _anywhere_ ," she hissed, feeling her extremities start to tingle as she assumed her fighting stance.

"What are you doing?!" he shouted, panic beginning to settle on his expression. The chatter that seemed to hover over them like hungry vultures began its ascent once more.

"You want to hurt people?" she asked, low and probably unheard by him.

"Of course not!" he shouted, and yet, he too was falling back into a defensive stance.

"You want to hurt our friends?!" she snarled, baring teeth.

"No!"

"Then hurt  _me!"_ she roared, and then lept.

She'd been creeping up to him slowly with every word, and she led with a lead leg cut kick that probably would have hurt.

Probably being the operative word, because Ben spun out of the way, eyes wide and terrified. She saw the twitch in his upper body as he fell into a boxer's stance, arms up, as if he was fighting some pre-programmed response with all of his might. She rechambered her leg and, using the muscle memory she'd built up over years of practice, shot out her leg to the side this time, hoping to catch him off guard.

Ben...slapped her foot aside. Almost contemptuously, if one weren't looking at his face.

She landed in an awkward front stance, and spun on her lead leg, bringing her rear leg in for a shuffling footwork that normally dizzied everyone she sparred with nowadays. She brought her arms up and went in for a jab-uppercut combo.

Rey had known as soon as she'd launched her punches that they wouldn't land true. Yet, she still tried.

The ease with which Ben deflected her strikes was almost pitiful. He was whispering something, or maybe shouting - it was hard to tell amidst the roar of the crowd and the rushing in her ears, but all she could see was the man she'd come to help turn her aside like a child with each blow he blocked.

Finally, he seemed to tire of just blocking her hits, because on her last punch, aimed at his jugular, Ben just swatted her wrist aside. It was a gentle movement, but it still sent a stinging ring down her arm that was sure to ache later. With unnatural swiftness, he grabbed her left arm above the elbow, stepped in, and trapped the lower part of her arm in a clinch.

"No," Ben said, frantic as he looked down and locked eyes with her, "I'm not fighting. Not you."

The grasp he had on her was no joint-lock. He was going easy on her.

Which is why the first thing she tried to do was punch his jaw.

Ben's other hand came up and caught her wrist before it could ever make contact. She saw him close his eyes, and violently struggle with some decision before opening them and meeting hers again - the same dead look in them from before.

She was losing him.

" _Not me?_ " Rey shouted desperately up at him. She had to get him to react. "Why?! Tell me, why can you break Poe's arm - send people to the hospital beat to a bloody  _fucking_ pulp, and you can't fight-"

Something in him seemed to break.

"Because I'm in love with you!" he yelled, right in her face.

Time ground to a halt.

Rey stopped.

Ben let go.

She stumbled back, away from him, but all the balance in the world couldn't have stabilized her then, because the world had stopped spinning, and the stars were falling down all around her.

The clinical and cold part of her mind noticed he was breathing hard, just like she was. It was a strange and stark thing to see after the almost casual ease with which he'd evaded and dismissed all her blows. The wound on his face seemed to pulsate with each breath and faint red drops ran down his neck, and sunk into the cloth on his abdomen. He saw her watch him and then he turned away, as if ashamed of his confession.

Rey tried to bring up her arms in a fighting guard, but they went slack. She swallowed and assumed her previous fighting stance, but it felt weak.

The crowd was booing now. She could hear the taunts and the catcalls and the hoots and every malignant tumor that was each person's voice call for a continuation, a sequel to their almost comical one-sided fight.

"Because," he repeated, his voice pained but insistent, "Because I'm in  _love_  with you, Rey. I have been for a while, and I...I'm not going to fight you."

She closed her eyes, and felt the tears she'd been suppressing the entire time begin to flow. "You-"

"Please, Rey," Ben begged, "Just leave me alone. Get out of here." He bowed his head. "You don't belong here. I do. Please believe that."

Her vision watered as she brought her arms to her side, and she began to tremble.

"You-"

"Just  _leave!_ " he yelled, pointing toward the exit. "Go! Get out of-"

"You utter  _asshole!_ " she screamed.

Ben reeled back, as if physically struck. It was the biggest reaction she'd gotten out of him during their entire fight. Whatever shields he'd put up seemed to shatter at her roar, and part of her, the dark and pained and hidden part that she'd thought gone reveled in it.

"How  _dare_  you!" she continued, "How  _dare_ you ruin those words, in  _this_ place!"

"What-"

She threw herself at him, formless and without a plan, but fully intending on hurting him every bit as much as he'd hurt her.

Ben moved on instinct. He bent back and away and let her haymaker fly by, and, without missing a breath, he stepped in to her space.

It was like being in the presence of an animal. A very tall, very large, and dangerous animal. His breath seemed to shut down whatever malformed plans her brain came up with and before she could guess at what he was thinking of doing, he was grabbing her in a dancer's clench, one hand wrapped around the small of her back. His other hand gripped her still-extended wrist.

He lifted her with superb ease, and her heart, exhausted and hopeful as it was, seemed to flutter, thinking that  _finally_  she'd broken through. For one precious fragile moment it was like she was flying in his arms.

"Finish it!" a voice -  _Snoke's_  - seemed to shout.

She'd once dreamt of being lifted up by Ben.

But not like this.

 _Never_  like this.

It had taken her a minute, but she realized he'd pulled her into the position for a hip throw, and at this point she could only hope he'd be more gentle about it that some of the red belts had been about a month earlier.

Ben's face distorted, eyes closed, and suddenly the flight became a launch. The lift rose and sped up and the world flashed by her eyes as the end of everything approached. He rolled her over his hip, and her heart started beating at a million beats per second, and the cage and the warehouse and Snoke melted as she approached disaster on a collision course to end dreams.

He stopped her, miraculously, literal centimeters before her head had the chance to hit the floor.

Ben's positioning for the hip throw wasn't perfect. She was too short and he was too tall, and he'd stepped in too close, and countless other little things any other master and instructor would have pointed out in a saner setting. But none of that mattered. For as much as she fought, for as valiant her efforts were, one thing was made clear: Ben was stronger, larger, and infinitely more prepared than she'd ever been.

The sheer advantage of mass alone made up for his stance in abundance.

It also allowed him to hold her up at the last second, and save her from any damage he could have inflicted. She turned to look up at him, his torn expression locking eyes with her own and she  _saw_.

The pain, the fear, and,  _yes_ , the love.

"I love you, Rey," he uttered, without moving his lips. "And...I'm sorry."

And then he let go.

She fell less than an inch to the ground with a jolt. The short drop struck the air from her lungs. All the hope she'd somehow kept after that breathless revelation escaped her with an  _ooof._

Ben stood, turned, and walked away.

"Is this what you want!?" he shouted, up at the cage. No, not the cage, her mind noted - the crowd. "Is this what you want? You want me to beat up little girls!?"

She didn't know how they could hear him over the din of the warehouse, but they did. The crowd seemed to shriek in approval, even as her consciousness fought to stabilize itself.

"Well," a dark smirk and haughty laugh bubbled out of Ben like a witch's brew, "aren't you all a bunch of  _cowards!_ "

There was a pause. A baited breath of a waiting maelstrom and suddenly whatever Rey thought of Ben didn't matter - she was terrified for him and his life.

Ben Solo had shocked the entire population fueling this monstrosity into silence.

"That's right!" he roared. He seemed to shake with every word, in fear or rage, she couldn't tell. "You're all nothing but greedy, self-serving,  _rats!_  Cowards who think that  _this_ -" he gestured to her, "-is an appropriate fight for me!"

He slammed his chest like some great hulking gorilla, and she saw the twitch in his body, the agony in his unconcious tics. Ben was hurting. He was in pain.

"You think sending a novice and a  _teenager,_ " he shouted up at them, his voice amplified by some boom mic that was finally turned on, "is a worthy fight for me!? I'm  _Kylo Ren._  Give me your best and your bravest, you fakes! Send in your greatest and your proudest!"

A tidal wave of voices rose, all incensed, all offended, and all completely in support of his proposition.

Ben jumped in fake jubilation at the prospect of more fighting. "Or is this enough?! Are you satisfied with simple theatrics, or do you want an actual fight!?"

He shouted as if trying to rouse the crowd, but that was one thing they definitely did not need. Rey winced as she pushed herself up. Her side was going to be a little sore, but that was more from the shock of the fall than anything Ben had done.

"Send them in twos and threes!" he bellowed, falling into a heated fervor and almost skipping as he circled the ring. "Send them in and watch them fall! Because I am Kylo Ren and  _I._   _Don't. Lose._ "

Whatever grip of delirium Rey thought had possessed the crowd seemed to pale in comparison to the dementia that seemed to overtake every person there. Screams began to overshadow reason, and for a second Rey was terrified they would swarm the cage and face Ben themselves. The mesh and metallic wires of the dome above them shook as people grabbed at the chain links holding everything, and she couldn't stop herself from whimpering, feeling the area of effect of so much  _hate_.

The metallic staticky sound of a speaker boomed then, and Snoke's voice came on, through various speakers in the walls of the pit. A private conversation in the middle of everything. "Are you sure, my student?"

There was a diseased kind of affection in the man's voice, and Ben's title was said like an affectation reserved for a favorite pet.

Ben didn't stutter and he didn't waver when he looked up and said, in the most reverent tone she'd ever heard from him, "Yes, Master Snoke."

A chuckle seemed to echo from all around them. "Very well," Snoke said, from wherever he was. "We will start sending them in groups." Though she couldn't see him, she was sure the man had somehow physically shifted when he then said, "And what of your... _friends?"_

He said the last word as if it were something dirty.

"They're of no consequence," Ben uttered, without breaking character. Or, maybe, he'd become the character. "They've seen nothing that can't be disproven given your resources. We can let them go."

"Hmm," Snoke mused, drawing delight from the word and the action, "They are a loose end, my student. A frayed string on our flag. You know our policy on such things. Once Skywalker finds out-"

"Let her go back then," Ben interrupted, as he faced her. She just knew he was going to pay for his impertinence later. She rose onto her knees and was trying not to gape at Ben's actions as he walked to stand before her.

Snoke would make him pay, of that she was certain.

He met her eyes as he said, "Let her return and sicken herself and Skywalker with their impotence. You are wise, Master, surely you can see that she's not worth your effort."

"Your flattery belies your desires, Kylo Ren," Snoke's voice dropped to a hush amongst the two in the cage, "You still  _care._  You still have your father's heart, I see."

"Han Solo is dead," Ben said flatly, and despite the facsimile of stoicness he was putting on, she heard the minor pitch change when he said his father's name. "So is my heart."

Snoke did not reply immediately. Outside the cage, Rey could hear people calling bets and making deals and promises and who knows what else. Then, the line opened once more, and she could hear his gratuitous laughter echo in. The man was keeping the line open explicitly to show his amusement.

"A deadened heart, hmm?" Snoke asked, and childish delight was clear, "Then we shall see what your body can do, free of such burdens. Girl, you may leave, but know that any attempt to draw the authorities will not be met with the same generosity Kylo Ren has granted you."

Rey jerked back at being so suddenly addressed. She was about to tell him where to stuff his command when she caught the pleading, supplicant look Ben was shooting her. His eyes were dark, and wide, and his lip was trembling as if he was afraid. Afraid for  _her._

He was offering her a way out.

She heard the hiss and release of the hallway door that led to Ben's private room.

Before Rey could say another word or charge at him the way she wanted, Ben had turned his back to them, and Phasma was there, pulling her back into the hallway. "Come on, Rey," she said in a determined voice. Even in her shocked state, Rey could tell Phasma was a lot closer to breaking down than she let on. "Come on," she repeated, "We need to get to a hospital."

Rey looked back, and got one last look at the man she loved before he turned away to face his next opponent. Or opponents.

He was saying something. It was a mumble, a prayer, and a farewell.

 _I belong here_.

They passed through the hallway in a daze, and when they reached the room the door between them and the cage slammed shut, sealing them out.

After a moment, Rey shuddered, and could only weakly say, "We can't leave Ben."

"I…" Phasma whispered, "I don't think that's Ben anymore."

* * *

Rey ended up driving to the hospital that night. Phasma had chosen to stick with Poe in the backseat, keeping him company and making sure he didn't jostle his arm too much. Rey found the exit road that fed back into the highway they'd come in on a few miles beyond where the entrance had been, and whatever concerns she may have had earlier that night about keeping her wits about her fell away as she realized her friend needed medical attention.

The man who'd been in the room with them had set Poe's arm with a dispassionate stare after stating that he had nothing to help dull the pain. He had grabbed a splint from the counter, and helped Poe tuck his arm into it, and then ended up recommending they go to the hospital for any extra examinations Poe might need. Apparently Snoke's announcement that they were free to go had been broadcast to the room as well, and that had been enough for the man to wash his hands of Poe before exiting through the side door he'd come from.

The hospital visit had been tense and depressing and all Rey could do as she and Phasma waited hours for Poe's examinations and X-rays to finish had been to think. It was morning by the time he got released and Poe had all but collapsed in the back seat, under the influence of whatever painkillers they'd given him.

After dropping Poe off at his place and bringing his car back to his apartment, Rey and Phasma drove in silence.

That is, until Rey said the one thing still on her mind.

"He's not gone."

Phasma looked over at her. Where there had been strength in her poise, there was now only doubt. "Do you really believe that?"

Rey swallowed and nodded, unable to look at her friend. "Ben's still in there. He's the one who got us out of there."

It took a disconcertingly large amount of time before Phasma nodded slowly and then, apropos of nothing, breathed, "You're amazing, you know that?"

 _That_  got Rey to take her eyes off the inappropriately sunlit road and look at her traveling companion askance. "What're you talking about?"

"You," Phasma pointed out, "You and Poe. You both...you both went out there and faced him. Faced Snoke." She swallowed and surely that was a reflection off some puddle in the rode shining on her stunning face, because  _holy shit_ , those were  _not_  tears in her eyes. "I just stayed back. Like a coward."

"Where's this coming from?" Rey said, wondering if she'd knocked her head in the cage a little harder than she originally thought. Phasma was not one to apologize. Nor to be so...un-Phasma.

"Just a thought," Phasma supplied, before looking out the window of the Falcon. They were slowly approaching Rey's apartment. "You're brave. I kinda' wish I had a little bit of that for myself."

"Hey are you-"

"Don't worry," Phasma said, plastering her fakest smirk yet, "I'll be back to normal in no time."

And then they reached Rey's apartment and that was the end of that conversation, because Phasma didn't even wait for her to turn off the Falcon before opening the door and all-but running away.

* * *

Finn, as it turned out, had a bit of a mother hen streak in him.

He greeted Rey with a desperate hug and a quick check and pat to make sure she still had all her major limbs untouched, before yanking her in for another hug that would have broken bone on its own.

"I'm so glad you're okay," he said, stepping back and looking her up and down. A shower the day after everything had washed away all the grime and sweat she'd gotten into her hair, and now it was back in her traditional triple bun style. "Poe hasn't told me everything but..."

She was about to assure him that she suffered no injuries before Finn dragged her in for another hug.

Rey squirmed in his grasp, reaching for anything that could help pry her well-meaning but surprisingly strong friend away.

"Yeah, he's been doing that since he got here. Three days ago." Poe's voice was its cocky and confident self once again. He was standing, propping himself up against his kitchen counter with his good arm, the other one in a sling. "Good luck with that."

"Help," she gasped, only for Finn to pull her inside and close the door behind her.

Half an hour later, after finally establishing that  _yes_  she was okay,  _no_ , she didn't need see the doctors to make sure,  _yes_ , she was positive, and  _yes_ , she really was absolutely sure, they sat down. The overbearing attitude would have been annoying any other time, but right now, just days after the Fight Club Fuck-up (as Poe had so appropriately named the debacle in their texts), it was heartwarming.

 _Maybe_ still a little annoying though.

"I can't believe you guys made it out ok," Finn said again, practically babbling as she and Poe traded glances. Poe, in his post-medicated state, had called Finn and spilled, well….not everything, but enough to terrify any normal person. Finn was grasping at Poe's free hand like a drowning man would a buoy.

She couldn't blame them. Either of them. She ached to talk to Master Luke about it, but...at the same time she knew that doing so would have been the end of whatever chance they had of getting Ben back.

"It was pretty close," Rey admitted, settling in to Poe's single La-Z-Boy. The man had a mechanical reclining sofa, but the chair was her favorite part of the apartment. It stretched and held her gently and if she ever got the chance, she was totally going to steal it from Poe.

It felt safe. It reminded her of being in Ben's arms.

She winced at the memory that thought brought to her mind.

Finn seemed to look between her expression and Poe's ever-so purposefully innocent one and groaned.

"No," he said, shaking his head, "Absolutely not."

Poe looked at his boyfriend bemused. "What are you talking about?"

"No!" Finn seemed to shout, before he realized the condition Poe was in and sat back, "You guys can't be thinking of going back there!"

Poe's eyebrows rose in surprise. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he said straight-faced, and Rey couldn't help but be impressed. A fretful Finn was a hard thing to say no to. She should know, she'd nearly confessed everything about Plutt to him enough times in high school.

"Really?" Finn demanded. His grip on Poe's hand became vice-like. "Promise me."

"I promise."

"Say it in full," Finn said. She saw the warble and plea affect him physically. It struck her that Finn had bags under his eyes. The kind you get from days of not sleeping. "Please."

Poe looked Finn straight in the eye, and Rey squirmed. This seemed to be a deeply private moment for the two and suddenly she felt horrible about arriving and interrupting their time together.

"I promise to not drive back there and kick Ben's ass," Poe said, maintaining eye contact the whole time until the last three words. He looked over at her and winked, "Even if he  _really_  really, deserves it."

Finn stared at him for a little longer before sighing, somehow relieved. "Thank you," he said. "I know you probably weren't planning to, after everything but...that really makes me feel better."

They then proceeded to watch some terrible movie on TV, pure cinematic fluff with not depth or comedy value, and Rey absolutely did not mention that she'd seen Poe's fingers - the ones  _not_  in Finn's vice-like grip, rather, the ones poking out of the of the sling his arm was in - cross.

* * *

It had been almost week since they'd fought (if you could call it that) Ben, and in that time, Rey's anger had dissipated. In its place, she felt a chilling feeling of deep, overwhelming concern and confusion. And of course, her more irrational side (the part that had thought it was a great idea to challenge him) was upset that Ben hadn't respect her enough to put up a proper fight (not that she'd particularly felt like fighting him, but  _still_ ).

And then the whole of her couldn't help but repeat those words he'd said back to her, in the dead of night, when all she had were nightmares and memories. Lately, she couldn't even tell the difference between the two.

Though she had a dozen reasons to feel confused and conflicted, at the end of each night since they'd gone to Tatooine, all her thoughts, fears, and worries had condensed into a single echo of words that never should have been spoken in anger.

_Because I'm in love with you._

Rey sighed into the empty, dark diner. Maz was in the back office, probably working on the schedule for the next week, and Rey found herself hopelessly and utterly alone. She'd already taken off her skates, and after a few moments she walked over to the old, familiar jukebox, selecting a ridiculously cheesy song that, oddly enough, fit her mood. It wasn't exactly her taste, but she wasn't really feeling any of her usual selections.

> " _Turn around,_
> 
> _Every now and then I get a little bit lonely,_
> 
> _And you're never coming 'round."_

Rey was so wrapped up in her thoughts and in the jukebox she was nearly crushing with a death-grip that she didn't hear the bell over the door go off. All she heard was a low voice murmur in her ear, "Turn around, Rey."

She instantly felt chills go up her spine, and she turned slowly, leaning back against the jukebox.

> " _Every now and then I get a little bit terrified,_
> 
> _A_ _nd then I see the look in your eyes."_

His arm wrapped around her waist, and his other hand clasped hers. The scar that ran down his face was healing well, and her heart pounded as she was reminded that it gave him a rather dangerous look.

> " _Turn around, bright eyes;_
> 
> _Every now and then I fall apart."_

"Ben," she breathed.

His lips worked together for a moment, and he corrected her, "Kylo."

"No, " she shook her head. "I told you, I'm not calling you that." She'd intended to snap, but the words came out softly, like a quiet murmur whispered in a lover's ear.

> " _And I need you now, tonight;_
> 
> _And I need you more than ever."_

He ignored the comment, and asked lowly, glancing down at her, "Want to dance?"

Rey blinked, and let him pull her further into his arms.

> " _And if you only hold me tight-"_

"We need to talk about things, Ben. What you're involved in is  _not_  okay."

> " _We'll be holding on forever."_

"Stop calling me that," he said, in a casual voice that had just a bit of edge to it. "It's  _Kylo_."

> " _And we'll only be making it right-"_

"No, it's not," Rey said, a bit horrified. " _You're not_. You're Ben Solo."

> "' _Cause we'll never be wrong together."_

He sighed. "You really think you know who I am?" Rey kept her eyes firmly on his, and nodded. "Ah, you do."

> " _Together we can take it to the end of the line-"_

"I know exactly who you are," she said calmly, an edge of defiance in her voice.

> " _Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time."_

Rey looked up at him, eyes shining. "You called me your starlight because I'm your home - because I remind you of who you are. Let me do that."

> " _I don't know what to do, and I'm always in the dark-"_

"You have your mother's eyes and every time you smirk you look like your father, and I don't  _care_  what Snoke's done - you aren't the mask you've been wearing. You aren't Kylo Ren."

> " _We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks."_

"You're still the idiot who couldn't skate if his life depended on it," she smiled sadly. "You're one of the few people who's ever dared to call me by some sort of sappy pet name."

> " _I really need you tonight-"_

"You're Ben Solo, and you're the only man I've ever-"

She froze, slack-jawed.

> " _Forever's going to start tonight-"_

"The only man you've ever  _what_ , Rey?" he asked, his dark eyes desperately searching hers. "Say it."

> " _Forever's going to start tonight."_

Rey bit her lip, and answered, "Nothing. It doesn't matter."

> " _Once upon a time I was falling in love-'_

"You promised you wouldn't lie to me like that again," he whispered.

> " _But now I'm only falling apart."_

"Yeah, and you promised no one would ever hurt me again," she bit back.

He ignored that and let go of her waist, spinning her gently. Before she knew it, he'd spun her back into him, wrapping his arm around her tightly while his hand came up to cup her face.

> " _There's nothing I can do-_
> 
> _A total eclipse of the heart."_

Rey felt breathless, and his eyes smoldered down at her before dropping to her lips. He dipped her slowly and leaned down to meet her in what would have been a kiss-

It would have been a kiss. But something in her said  _no,_   _not like this._

> " _Once upon a time there was light in my life,_
> 
> _But now there's only love in the dark."_

She stopped him, asking softly, "Is this Ben Solo, or Kylo Ren whose arms I'm in?"

> " _Nothing I can say,_
> 
> _Total eclipse of the heart..."_

His mouth opened, and then shut again. He brought them back to their standing position before asking, "Does it matter?"

Rey sighed and said quietly, "You'll have to take that mask off if you want to kiss me."

He looked down at her through his stunning brown eyes. After a moment, his shoulders dropped in defeat, and he let her pull out of his arms.

Rey nodded and reluctantly backed away. She moved around him and his eyes followed her, swimming in hurt and disappointment while he watched her walk slowly to the door.

"Rey," he said softly, "Starlight." His lip quivered as he let out a strangled, " _Please."_

She turned back, and gave him another sad smile before saying quietly, her voice a bit shaky, "I'm sorry. I really am. But Ben Solo's the only man I ever want to kiss, and right now…" she sighed, "right now, I'm not sure you're him."

Taking another step toward the door, she sucked in a breath and added, "If you see him, tell him I still shine for him. Tell him I always will."

In seconds, she'd turned her back on him, and left. The door had shut behind her.

He was alone, left in the diner while the jukebox mocked him with an oddly appropriate song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A Master's advice, a mission, and a team-up.
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> Attack: I wrote the last scene, so if you want to throw rotten tomatoes at someone for what is, essentially, the "Rey shuts the Falcon door on Ben" scene, direct them my way. I said Act II wouldn't end on that scene - not that we wouldn't include it. I've had it written for almost two months and honestly, I think it's a pretty pivotal point in this whole mess. If anyone's curious, we collaborated on the first scene, onfire wrote the middle scenes, and I wrote the third.
> 
> Onfire: This will probably be our most controversial chapter to date, I bet. With regards to the Ben and Rey fight: she's about a hundred pounds lighter, at least half a foot shorter, and she hasn't been training nearly as long as he has. Nevermind all the various nasty things he's learned in the time since leaving Luke's Dojang. There is no other way that fight could have gone. Even emotionally unbalanced, Ben is superior to...well, damn near everyone. For those who are disappointed the fight ended like that, I'm sorry.
> 
> Take heart though, because (and this will be important in the upcoming chapters) the most important fights are often not fought with fists. Rey's not done with Ben just yet. We've still got two chapters to go through until Act II is over, after all. And...three chapters until the arc is over.  
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> What Ben did was a much gentler version of a hip throw, but if you want to see what a properly performed hip-throw looks like, here's an example: [Hip Throw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKmdO4vW-gI)


	36. Black Belt, Second Stripe, Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We did a bit of reconfiguration because we realized a few scenes we have planned will take up a LOT more space than we'd originally thought. Silly us. I think onfire and I keep forgetting that action scenes take up more room. Because of this, our 5 chapter arc will complete Act II. Act III will begin with Chapter 39.
> 
> Obviously our schedule got bumped a bit, so expect chapter 37 to post sometime on 8/26, probably pretty late, EST. As always, please feel free to check in with us on Tumblr for updates and ETA requests.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


The next week passed by with the sort of listless cloud of melancholy mostly found in 9-to-5 office jobs where sunlight was a luxury and people got excited about new carpets. Rey's spring semester classes were long over, and the only other distraction she had was the daily workhorse job of waitressing for Maz. Apparently there was some sort of week-long convention in town, and Maz had done some grassroots advertising, offering a half-off discount for anyone who brought in a flyer from the event.

The clientele had been pleasingly bland and yet astoundingly hungry, and Rey found herself without a chance to sit for hours on end. She was too occupied with three cups of coffee, an order of lightly salted fries, a chicken salad with a heaping of mustard (just...ew) and a slew of other inane, boring, and otherwise unmemorable orders from people living ordinary lives in an ordinary world.

In those moments of true thought, before the undertow of work submerged her mind over again, she found herself looking at all the little things in the diner that reminded her of Ben. She couldn't even remember the last time he'd stolen her fries, a thought which would sometimes stick with her until nighttime, when thoughts of Kylo Ren and the beasts he faced presented themselves in high definition across the inside of her eyes.

It was Friday again, when Rey finally worked up the courage to go back to the Dojang. She was dead tired from working at Maz's all day but she still felt on edge, like an electric coil brimming with so much energy it hurt. Heading home for the night would have just resulted in her laying in bed trying not to think about the man who needed help but was determined not to accept it.

When she stepped through the doors of the Dojang, right after her shift at Maz's, carrying her dobok in her usual duffel bag, Rey was immediately aware of one person's stare as she walked across the floor to the girls' locker room.

Master Luke had been in the corner of the room, helping a trio of keen, eager, and recently promoted green belts with their stances in front of the mirror wall. When the tinkle of the bell rang he'd looked over at her, and for a second Rey was reminded of the argument in front of the hospital and how they'd left things.

And the fact that she hadn't shown up to training in a couple weeks.

Not since Ben took her and all her attempts to strike him with no more than a huffed breath and a pained gaze.

All her training had amounted to nothing in the face of that, and she'd had days old coffee go down easier than that. It had been discouraging, to say the least.

Though Master Luke eventually turned away and began instructing the green belts again, Rey was certain that his awareness of her didn't stop, even when she entered the locker room. She'd arrived early, hoping to get some time against the punching bag to herself without the presence of others since Master Luke usually spent some time in his office before each class, but it would seem that would have to wait until after their lesson.

She and Luke hadn't really talked much since that last time. Even her birthday had been an awkward, almost glossed over affair, where neither of them addressed the elephant in the room between them, and the tension had gotten so thick that he'd excused himself early, citing some fictional documents and errands he'd needed to take care of.

It was probably a disconcerting sign of her own character, but the party, hosted at her and Rose's apartment, had become infinitely more relaxed without the crackling thunderclouds between the two of them.

On stepping out of the locker room she saw that the green belts had moved to a different corner, and now it was two of them helping the third member with Taeguk Il-Jang. Master Luke was nowhere to be seen.

Rey breathed a sigh of relief, and tried not to feel like a terrible person for it.

Of course, karmic justice existed, because  _that_ was the instant he spoke up right behind her, scaring ten years off her lifespan.

"I was the one who suggested they practice together," he said. Rey whirled and saw the gently smiling face of her master as he looked over at the green belts. "I figured they could use the support."

"Do you always have to do that?" Rey accused, reaching for her heart, which was currently slowing down from Mach 4 to somewhere around the speed of a Nascar racer's engine.

He didn't look her way. "Do what?"

" _That!_ " Rey complained plaintively, suddenly unable to keep up all pretense of awkwardness anymore. To her pure frustration, Luke's response was a single raised eyebrow. "The sneaking up on me thing! It stopped being funny when I was sixteen."

Luke tilted his head in an almost mechanical fashion before something mischievous twitched in his smile. "Huh. What a coincidence. That's when it started being funny for me."

"Coincidence," she said flatly.

Luke nodded sagely, fixing her with an amused stare. "Yes. Pure coincidence. Nothing to do with the fact I suddenly had a moody teenager who took herself a little too seriously under my roof."

Rey snorted. "Like you're one to talk. Remember that time I caught you sleeping on the couch because you got too caught up in reading the minutes from the-" she scrunched up her face and tried to remember something suitably boring, "-Kukkiwon poom and dan certificate redesign committee, 1998 edition?"

Luke crossed his arms and, seemed to sniff disdainfully. If she looked hard enough she could see the blush starting from his ears begin to creep across the rest of his bearded face. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Sure thing," Rey crossed her arms, and struggled to suppress the smile that threatened to break out, "and I didn't catch you primping that one time you and Amilyn had a 'meeting' about a demonstration at the school?"

"It's called being presentable, you devil child," Luke groused, "and we  _did_  have a demonstration, in case you need reminding. I distinctly remember having you participate."

Rey remembered. Luke had, in his ineffable, unattached and dispassionate Taekwondo instructor manner, made her the subject of many a take-down that afternoon. It hadn't hurt, but at a certain point the kids had started cheering for new ways for the other students to knock her out, especially since she'd been instructed to ham it up as much as possible. Middle-schoolers were violent little goblins at the best of times, apparently.

"True," she said, hiding her true thoughts on the matter, "except that 'meeting' lasted for four hours. And Amilyn isn't even the principal for the Middle School."

"We had a lot of paperwork to get through," he countered, a bit too quickly. "And the Middle School's principal wasn't available, so as the High School Principal, it made sense for her to step in."

"Paperwork, huh? Four hours worth?"

"I'm a slow reader," he said obliquely.

Rey's stare was drier than the Sahara.

"Not that you have much room to argue," Luke said, braving forward with gusto, "I seem to recall a certain someone having trouble with working the tea kettle. She almost melted the damn thing by putting it on the stove."

"It's a tea kettle!" Rey said hotly, mortified that he'd dare bring that up, "That's how they work!"

"It  _was_  made of plastic. And it had a wire. To plug in to a wall." He waited a second to let the words settle, before adding, "It was also a gift from your grandfather."

"...really?"

Master Luke's laugh was boisterous and loud and everything she wished she could have heard in their interactions since their fight. "Of course not!" he chuckled, "Old Ben  _hated_  tea. He had the palate of a chicken. A very boring chicken. The man practically lived on bread, water, and a glass of wine every Saturday, and I'm not sure he wasn't working on just living off the latter."

"Yeah," Rey couldn't resist adding, "I'm sure after seeing you every day, he would have needed that."

"Brat," Luke said, almost fondly.

She was going to fire back, when she saw the wistful, almost mournful look, cross his face. It brought to mind the shattered man she'd left in the diner a week earlier, and that drained all previous joviality out of her like a leaky hot-air balloon.

Without saying anything, the they swapped back to watching the trio of green belts.

Rey wondered what it would have been like, to have someone alongside her in her promotions. Rose had been the last person in her starting white belt class, and she'd dropped relatively early on. Rey had been acutely aware of how at least every other student seemed to have someone they were close to in rank and camaraderie somehow. Sure there were people both above and below her ranks who she could have spent time with, but after her unwarranted assault on both Jess and Poe (and it  _was_  assault, she admitted), it wasn't like anyone was really interested in making nice with the scary girl who had a chip on her shoulder.

Even after they patched things up, Poe was a little too distant in rank for her to form that kind of bond in the Dojang with, even if he was a hellaciously fun man to have around for Terror-Horror-Fridays (name change pending).

It...would have been nice, she supposed. To have people know her struggles as intimately as she had.

"Those three are probably going to quit after next promotion," Luke said, voice low, out of the blue and for no apparent reason. "The siblings are moving away and the third one,  _well_ , I half-suspect the reason he's still sticking around is because he's got a crush on the girl."

Rey peered at them a little closer. She could see the family resemblance between two of them, a pair of soft, heart-shaped faces and a shade of red hair that would have put Hux to shame. The third was shorter than the two. He was a dark-skinned, shrimpy five foot nothing, and his dobok hung off him like a clothesline.

"How old are they?" she found herself asking.

Luke gave her a side-glance before he continued his scrutiny of the trio. "They're all fourteen."

Rey looked at him, alarmed. "You're joking."

He shook his head. "Not this time."

"They're..." She gestured at them, trying to come up with a more appropriate word than what was on her mind. She gave up. "They're tiny."

The look he gave her was somewhere between this side of the city of  _Duh_ and the castle of  _No Shit_. "You were a munchkin yourself when you joined us, Rey."

"Yeah, but I never looked like that did I?" She was suddenly and overwhelmingly overcome with the urge to look over any old photos of her there might exist. "I mean, they're so..." She struggled to come up with a word that would fit.

"Young?" Luke offered. He studied her, and seemed to realize just how far beyond the surface her anxiety went, "You know, I wasn't that much older than them when I started."

Rey blinked, and tried to imagine a world where Luke was just a cocky little white belt, eager to try his hand at kicking, punching, and who knows what other contrivances he thought of. She found she couldn't. There was something inextricable about Luke being a Sixth Dan in Taekwondo. The world may as well have been born with him that way for how permanent a fixture in the Dojang he was.

Of course, she'd thought the same thing of Ben and  _well..._

Ah fuck.  _There_  was her earlier gloom. Talking with Luke had distracted her from it temporarily but suddenly it was back, ready and willing to drag her maudlin ass back down memory lane.

Luke seemed to sense the change, because suddenly he was putting a hand on her shoulder, and Rey had to stop herself from hugging the man, unresolved arguments be damned. She didn't hug him though, because of the needling voice in her head telling her she didn't deserve a hug after the complete meltdown she'd had in front of the hospital, and especially because of the things she'd said.

"We should talk after class," Luke rumbled, and then smiled. He sounded just as he had years ago, when she ran up to him to ask him to teach her. Strong, tall, and most importantly,  _kind_. She was vaguely aware of nodding, caught up in the memories, before he stepped around her.

Apparently that was the end of that conversation because he soon ghosted away, smoothly gliding on silent footsteps towards his office as she tried to piece together what had just happened.

Class passed by at a reasonable pace. Poe was out, of course, due to the doctor recommending a few weeks of rest until he could even resume a light workout. All the other black belts were out as well, having previous or otherwise more important engagements for a Friday night. That left Rey at the front of the class for the first time, and for a brief moment of atavistic terror she realized she was the one responsible for calling the bow commands as the lead student responsibility.

Fortunately she didn't mess it up  _too_  badly. She switched some syllables around, but after a gentle rebuke from Luke, full of nothing but the honest wish to see her do her best, she managed to firm herself and call out everything when necessary.

When they performed the closing bows, Rey took a moment to step back and observe. It was something she didn't usually do. The others in the Dojang weren't necessarily boring (well, with the notable example of Poe, who may as well have come with his own subtitles for how fast and loud he talked), but they all did a little too much...everything. Chattering, whispering, giggling, murmuring, joking, mocking, teasing. Too much, too much, too much of everything.

Not enough Taekwondo.

She stretched her arms and legs, keeping an eye on everyone as they adjourned to their respective locker rooms and started filtering out in groups, with one or two stragglers clearly in their own little world with earbuds in their ears. Master Luke had retreated into his office, as he often did, to give everyone time in the Dojang without his eagle-eye stare to dissect their every movement.

When the last person left, Luke exited his office. He still wore his dobok, and his beard looked a little ruffed after the undoubtedly long day he'd had. He walked to the door of the Dojang, and, after a grunt of effort to jigger the door just right, locked it from the inside and turned the the sign on the door's window to say "Closed"

Curious, Rey watched as he came around the partition separating the guest area and the wooden floor of the Dojang, before kneeling at the head of the room, in probably the exact same spot he'd stood in when he rolled up her sleeve three years earlier.

Taking a breath to steel herself and calm her sudden nerves, Rey walked over and sat opposite him, in the same seiza position he was in.

"I'm glad you came tonight," Luke started, once she'd situated herself. "I was beginning to get worried."

Rey shifted in place, unable to meet his stare. His continued insistence on keeping everything genial and friendly and even a little playful was unnerving. This was the longest she and Luke had ever gone without fully resolving their issues after a fight. It didn't help that she'd been all but avoiding him the last two weeks.

She could tell him now. If she told Master Luke about the fight-club-slash-black-hole out in Tatooine, she had no doubt he'd do whatever he could to put an end to it.

"Some things came up," she said, looking down at her clenched hands.

He'd put an end to it, especially because Ben was involved.

Luke seemed to look her over, watching her reactions and nervous gestures with a banal eye. There was a flickering right above them, and she was struck by the dark haunted shadows that appeared on his somber face every few seconds or so. The sight seemed to stoke some tired fire that still hadn't deserted her since the night at the fight club.

"Whatever it is," Luke began gently, "I hope you know you can count on me if you need any help."

A red hot poker made of guilt and tempered in shame jabbed her heart, and she wondered if he knew. If he did, he was  _really_  good at the guilt-tripping thing.

Instead, all she said was, "I know."

Then, because that didn't seem sufficient, she said, "Thank you, Master Luke."

There was both gratitude and a beg for forgiveness in her statement and she wondered which one he caught.

More uneven silence. She could see Luke's shoulders droop.

"I'd...I'd like to apologize," Luke said, and whatever else she'd been expecting him to say, that hadn't been it. "I've been teaching for so long that sometimes I forget I still have some things left to learn myself."

Rey didn't know what to say, but she did manage close her mouth.

"That day at the hospital," Luke closed his eyes, as if the mere memory physically pained him, "I was wrong."

Her brain helpfully ran through the entire transcript of the conversation and came up with nothing. "I- I'm not sure I follow...uh...sir."

"Just Luke is fine for now," he said casually, as if he wasn't wearing his dobok and they weren't seated like countless times before when he'd been teaching her, "I'm not speaking as your Taekwondo Master here. I hope our argument from that day hasn't soured you on thinking of me as your friend."

Truth be told, Rey considered the man family, but some repressed instinct from her foster days stopped her from saying that. Calling anyone family was tantamount to asking to be moved to a new home and losing them forever. The homes she'd stayed in didn't much care for a foster child getting too attached.

So, instead, all she let out was a garbled, "Of course...Luke."

Luke nodded in gratitude. "Thank you." He seemed to debate his next words before speaking again. "I made several mistakes that day. That and so many others beforehand."

"Sir?"

"I did what my master did before me and his master before him: I treated you like a child," Luke shook his head and seemed to laugh at some unspoken joke. "I lorded my position over you as if it were something more than some silly title that only matters because we both agree to it. Being a  _Master_ , Rey, is about more than having a piece of paper that says you're allowed to teach someone. It's a mutual acknowledgement between two people: Teacher, and student."

She never could have imagined what brought this conversation on. That wasn't to say that she didn't think he wasn't right. He was just twisting it in such a way to make himself out to be far worse than he'd been.

"I dismissed your wishes without a thought, however aberrant I may have found them. Not because they were wrong, but because they were against Taekwondo credo. Against its," Luke snorted, "philosophy."

"But isn't that the same?" she found herself asking, and once again she marveled at how easily she fell into the role of inquisitive student when presented with a Luke who spoke freely.

"Maybe semantically," Luke shrugged, "But in practise? I've learned that they are galaxies apart."

Rey eyed him, suddenly sure there was something else to what he was saying.

"I did the same thing with Ben," Luke mused, and she was glad he was looking down then, because she couldn't stop the instinctive flinch on hearing his name spoken so openly. "I...talked down to him. I dismissed his concerns, his attitude, his decisions, and after he left us, I mostly only approached in the context of a Taekwondo master."

Luke's voice sounded jaundiced with regret as he smiled ruefully. "He called me Uncle Luke back in that tournament. Not Master Skywalker, not even Master Luke. Uncle Luke. He did that and I just.. _.I just tore into him."_

There were no tears in Luke's eyes, but she imagined it wasn't for lack of emotion.

Rey reached over and put a hand over Luke's shaking fists on his knees. "You did what you could," she whispered, aching to soothe her master's heart.

"That's the problem, Rey," he said, "I did what I could. I had the power to remind him of his position on the Taekwondo totem pole, and I did that. Every. Single. Time. In my arrogance, in my hubris, I pushed him closer to that monster with every word we exchanged."

Luke took a breath, a long empowering thing, that filled even Rey up vicariously.

"I also could have sat down and talked to him. Not teacher to student. Or even martial artist to martial artist. I could have spoken with him human to human. Uncle to nephew. Family to family."

There came a throng from the mounting thunderclouds outside. They'd been waiting for a monster of a storm the whole week. So far it was just gathering itself, and had been all day, but now Rey was able to feel the pending crash in her bones. She could smell the rain on the horizon, because the horizon had been devoured by nothing except clouds and thunder.

The light flickered once more, and this time, when it stabilized, Rey thought she saw something truly grand in the man sitting in front of her.

Grand, and dangerous.

"He's still in there," Rey found herself saying, before she could even catch herself, "Ben Solo is still in there, underneath that mask of Kylo Ren. It's not too late - he's not gone."

"No one's ever really gone, Rey," Luke said, and she could hear it in the baritone of his voice. Hope, simple and honest. "And I promise you, I will do my best to bring him back. I've been letting things with Snoke go on for too long."

She blinked, a little taken aback at this sudden vehemence. "Uh, what?"

"I can't say much, because I don't want to endanger you but," Luke grimaced, "I have friends. Old folks like me who can't leave well enough alone, I guess you could say. They're not fighters like you or I, but they like to make sure certain people are kept track of."

He continued, seeming to miss the nervous and slightly panicky realization going on across Rey's face, which was just as well because suddenly two worlds that she'd fully intended on keeping separate were turning out to be three feet away from crashing into each other at the speed of light.

"There's some operation going down in one of the neighboring cities. Illegal stuff. I don't know much, but I think Ben's involved, at least judging by the rumors of Kylo Ren popping up more and more recently."

Rey's jaw dropped and hoped it passed off as shock and not the sheer panic-inducing state of being she was rapidly running into.

"And if it  _is_  Ben," Luke said, "It's my job to put a stop to it. Not as his Master, but as his Uncle."

Too fast. This was all going way too fast. "W-wait, you don't mean…?"

"What?" He seemed momentarily confused, before realizing what he'd just said. "Oh! Oh god no! I'm not going to  _fight_  him Rey!"

Alright, so one heart attack was out of the way. Time to address the next three dozen on the list.

"So then what are you going to do?" she found herself asking.

"I don't know but," Luke shook his head, "as far as I'm concerned, the best way to win a fight is to never throw a punch."

"Well, what if it comes down to it?" she asked, and she remembered the sound of bone snapping as easily as a twig found on the sidewalk. "What happens if they're bigger, stronger, and just all around... _better?"_

Luke snorted and seemed to find her question amusing. "Rey, take it from me. If you've ever walked into a fight with someone like that, or hell, if you've ever walked into a fight  _period_ , you've done something wrong."

Rey stewed and mulled over that thought, focusing on it above all else.

"I'll bring him back, Rey. Somehow."

That's what she was worried about. She imagined Luke walking into that cage, with Ben, and she could almost hear the crypt-worthy laughter of the man known as Alistair Snoke as everything he wanted to dismantle and destroy fell into his grasp.

Outside, the thunder continued its roll over the cityscape, drums beating the march to battle.

* * *

They left off with Luke promising her she would be one of the first to know the results of his investigation. Apparently one of his friends had managed to find him an address, and though he didn't say what it was, Rey knew in her gut it was the location of Fire Lane 66, a road that had no purpose other than as a highway to hell.

He was heading there tomorrow.

She walked home in a daze.

The night had been tiresome. There seemed to be a subsonic whine to the sky, like a giant Tesla coil waiting for some triggering catalyst. Instead of being cool and refreshing or even just uncomfortably humid as the beginning of summer truly started to meander into the area, the air had a murky cloying feel to it, a little bog-like in a way, and every step home felt like trudging through an entire swamp's worth of putrid thoughts and rotting hopes.

She was, put simply, a complete and utter mess.

Luke was heading there tomorrow, and apparently she was letting him. She'd had her chance to come clean, several chances in fact, and she didn't speak up.

The situation had changed. By some unspoken agreement she, Poe, and Phasma had decided not to inform the Grandmaster of anything involving the  _Fight Club Fuckup_ , both as a way to preserve their own skins, and because they didn't want to lose Ben even further by having Luke interfere.

But now, the sudden possibility of having Luke and Ben face off against each other in that makeshift gladiator's pit was frighteningly real.

She reached her building after a half hour of disjointed roaming, and the first thing to drag her mind out of the circular track her worries were dragging her around was the sight of the Falcon.

She hadn't driven it since that fateful night. It was parallel parked, on the opposite side of the street of her building, and in the effervescent and anticipating light of the thunderstorm yet to hit, the car seemed to growl and glow with some hidden burning energy.

Tatooine was only an hour's drive away. She could be there and back by morning.

_What the hell are you thinking?_

Rey flinched at the sudden accusatory tone ringing throughout her own head.

She hadn't seen nor heard from Ben all week, since his stop in the diner, and it had taken her that long to realize what had bothered her so much about their interaction. There'd been an undercurrent there - some repressed and thinly controlled behemoth beneath his skin, hiding in the edges of his eyes. She'd picked up on it, of course, but she hadn't fully understood until Luke had said he was going to venture out to Tatooine himself.

For whatever reason, Ben had been terrified. It was hidden, amongst the rage and the tightly controlled assertions regarding his name, but every step, every tic, was that of a powerless man facing an indomitable monster.

Part of her wanted to check in on him or...maybe punch him? She wasn't entirely sure. She wanted to kiss Ben, maybe even wrap him up and put on a bunch of happy, carefree movies, and just  _cuddle_  until all their problems disappeared, and she desperately ached to punch  _Kylo_ , but since they were, apparently, the same person, she had to settle for neither. Or maybe both. In a softer, kinder world,  _both_  probably would have been the answer.

She'd only cried once since Tatooine, and that had been in the privacy of her room after she left Ben in the diner. But her week-long streak was about to shatter, and she realized that as she walked inside her building and saw the pile of letters and envelopes mounting in front of Ben's mailbox. She held on though, because tears wouldn't do anyone any good. She needed to think.

The worst part was, she hadn't even seen him, so she had no way of making sure he was okay. Words from the cage kept haunting her, day and night, and part of her desperately want to jump in the Falcon, head to Tatooine, and run it through that unholy warehouse like some makeshift battering ram. It wouldn't have worked, but at this point, Rey was willing to try anything.

" _Send them in twos and threes!"_

" _Are you sure, my student?"_

" _Yes, Master Snoke."_

She'd sparred two-on-one for her Black Belt exam, but her few minutes in the cage had driven home one very clear point: There was a distinct difference between sparring in a ring for points and fighting in a cage for bruises and empty glory. If your sparring partner accidentally kicked you too hard in the head, they stopped immediately to make sure you were okay. If your opponent in a cage kicked you in the head, the crowd cheered, and if you got up they wouldn't stop at just one. They'd knock you down and stomp on your chest, and make sure that your head and the floor became fast friends.

Rey had watched MMA fights, especially once she found out Ben was working at  _The First Order_ , and while it wasn't to her taste she could acknowledged that at least there were rules.

She knew, even without seeing it in action that night, that  _The First Order_  considered those rules, which had been designed for the safety of everyone, to be limiting factors for the kind of entertainment they were looking for.

 _Oh,_ Ben.

Rey had spent days running over how things could have gone differently. Would he have left with them if she'd said  _I love you_  back? Would he have dropped everything and ended things with Snoke if she'd just let him kiss her?

At that thought, she whined softly and opened the door to her apartment, the hinges squealing in unison with her. Rose was out of town with Paige, the older sister finally having saved enough money for a vacation with her younger sibling. She was due to come back tomorrow, and her trip left Rey alone in the apartment, something that hadn't really bothered her much. Until now, of course. Before, she'd always felt comforted, knowing Ben lived two floors above them, but now... _now_  she felt alone.

After dropping her stuff off on the couch, she padded into the kitchen and grabbed a handful of cookies from the stash she and Rose kept for when they were both having an off day. Thirty seconds later, she'd plopped down onto the couch, and when she instinctively reached for the blanket she kept there-

_Ben's blanket._

Rey wrapped it around herself as as a viciously strong throb in her chest tried to shake her resolve. She tucked her legs up onto the couch, nestling her head between her knees as she tried to catch her breath. She repeated the words she'd convinced herself of, even if the hollow ring of truth hurt as much as any lie ever had.

_I did the right thing._

Sometime after the dozenth repetition, someone started pounding on her door, snapping Rey's focus in half. She glared over at the door from the comfort of her seat. How  _dare_  someone disrupt her misery and wallowing?

"Go away!" she yelled, maybe at the door, or maybe at all the shit that lead up to the situation.

There was a pause. For a moment Rey was flummoxed at it being so easy, but of course that's when the banging started up again, louder than before. It was followed by Hux's voice saying, without his usual acerbic touch, " _Rey,_ please open up. I can hear the TV. I know you're in there."

What the hell. She'd just turned it on, and that was only for the comforting white noise it provided. The man must have had the hearing of a bat.

He was still slamming his fist against her door, forgoing the door knocker entirely. "Wait, is that you, Rose? Look, just, one of you answer the door. It's important, I swear."

Her brow furrowed. Hux was not the type to cry wolf. Especially not so late at night.

Without giving it another thought, she jumped up, wrapped the blanket around herself more tightly, and waddled to the door, throwing it open to find Hux more disheveled than he'd probably ever been. His hair, which was usually perfectly groomed and styled in such a way as to make most politicians feel scruffy, was a mess, and not even carefully tousled like she'd seen him do once. His naturally pale skin had somehow gained a ghostly pallor.

"It's Ben," he said urgently, and in that moment, Rey's stomach dropped, fearing the worst.

Hux didn't notice the sudden ill look that took over her expression, because was busy looking around the first floor lobby before he pushed past her to enter the apartment. He slowly closed the door after seeming to check the outside for people watching him again. When he heard the click of the door hinge, he finally relaxed and stood to his full height, explaining, "Phasma told me what happened."

Rey's mouth worked out the sentence before she realized the implications of it. "Wait, she did? I...why?"

Phasma had never struck her as someone who'd unnecessarily bring another person into the loop. Snoke's operation all but chewed them and spat them back out. Poe and Finn was understandable, because the guy had been drugged up to the gills at the time, but this was a turn of events she was not expecting.

He seemed to see the doubt in her expression and despite the severity of the situation, Hux's face took on his usually annoyed tone. "Contrary to what you or others might think, she and I  _do_  share things. I'd like to think I'm at least adequate at knowing when she's upset about something. That's rather important considering she's my fiancee."

Rey looked away from his glare, suitably abashed. "Ah, right. I forgot about that."

"You and everyone else," Hux muttered. "I swear, you call the woman a dreadful hag in public  _once_ , and suddenly your entire relationship is in question. But anyway" he said, suddenly back to business with that last sentence. "Ben. We need to go get him."

She let out a sigh of relief before remembering that the situation was still fairly dire, and replied, "Hux, we tried. He didn't want to leave. I don't know what else to do, short of telling Master Luke, and..." she trailed off, remembering the conversation she had with Luke not even an hour ago.

Telling Luke would have complicated things in a whole other manner. She imagined Snoke would be quite pleased if he could somehow put Luke and Ben together in that cage. She didn't know what would happen, but there was no way it would end well.

"Someone's got to help him," Hux argued. "Look, just tell me this-" Hux's eyes gleamed with fervor and something else she couldn't make out in the half-light of the TV. "If he  _wanted_  to leave; leave Snoke, leave the First Order, Tatooine and or even just get surgery to remove that brand of theirs...would they let him?"

_I am Kylo Ren and I! Don't! Lose!_

It had been a shout meant to rile the warmongers and creatures in human skin that were the guests of the fight club. Anyone else would have seen the challenge at face value, because they didn't know Ben, the sometimes brusque man who was kind, and gentle enough to take care of her after her first hangover, or hold her tightly as she finally let herself cry at the reality of escaping her abuser. They only saw Kylo Ren, the battle-lusted warrior who sought a 'worthy' challenge.

Rey hesitated. "I-"

"They wouldn't, and you know it," Hux said bluntly, all pretense of kindness gone. "He's been fucking  _branded_ , and as far as I can tell from what Phas has said, he's theirs. He's property. Property whose mind they've probably fucked with beyond belief."

She liked Hux on a good day, but only in small doses. The man was an equal opportunity condescending ass, which she could appreciate, but not on a night when she had way too much other crap to deal with.

"Don't talk down to me," she warned, her voice low, "I've gotten enough of that from Ben - I don't need it from you, too."

"Well then  _stand up_ , will you?" Hux said acidly, pointing to the blanket around her shoulders. "If you want me to treat you like an adult, cut the  _woe is me_  crap and let's get going!"

She scowled up at him, even as she pulled her blanket over her shoulders even further.

"You don't understand," she snapped coldly. She tried to think of a way to best describe her thoughts, and landed on: "What he's doing- it...it's  _sacrilege_. There's no respect in it. He's using his training - the same stuff he learned under Master Luke - and he's-" she scowled as she remembered his actions in the ring. "-he's  _twisting_  it! He's hurting people and doing terrible things. That's a decision he's making every time he goes there. It's a decision he makes with every punch - every kick."

Hux looked her up and down and then snorted. He looked over his shoulder out the window before meeting her stare again. "Got that out of your system, did you?"

"I will  _so_  kick your ass out of my apartment," Rey growled.

"Sorry kid, you're like a decade too young to scare me. You gotta' remember, I'm getting married to  _Phasma_."

"Yeah well, lucky you," Rey sneered, suppressing the internal wince at how resentful she sounded.

"He's moving out tomorrow," Hux said, suddenly changing the subject.

She gaped at him. Her axis of balance shifted ever so slightly, and she had to steady herself against her couch.

"What do you mean?" Ben hadn't said anything about moving in the weeks or months leading up to the mess at the hospital.

"I mean it exactly how it sounds!" Hux said, his sallow face finally gaining some color, trickles of red popping in his cheeks. "His stuff is in storage, and he's signing the papers for his new place tomorrow. Somewhere in Mandalore."

She hissed, a vaguely catlike sound that seemed to attract the attention of Rose's cat BB, who'd been following the conversation raptly from his makeshift perch on the TV stand. "He's moving in with them."

Despite the abruptness of his announcement, it didn't really surprise Rey. It seemed Snoke and  _The First Order_  had been doing their damnedest to isolate and estrange Ben from his friends and family. It worked too, if only because Ben kept walking headlong into each and every snare and plot they had set up for him.

Rey glanced up and met Hux's eyes, which had grown wide and weary, "You should have seen him, Hux," she whispered. "Did Phasma tell you what happened when we got there?"

"Not much," he said, shaking his head slowly, finally sitting down. There was a muted kind of panic growing in his eyes.

"Poe fought him first," she said softly. "And Ben or..." Rey shook her head, and swallowed hard. She couldn't bring herself to speak the other name. "He  _broke_  Poe. I know he probably never would have done it on purpose, but  _Hux_ , he did it. A beautiful back kick, just like Luke taught."

Better even. Rey was no master, but she recognized the power in that kick and she knew that there was something else in that strike. Some other martial art, maybe? In any case, that kick had a kind of controlled, ebullient power to it that she'd thought only mythical. Whatever else Snoke was, she could recognize that, at the very least, he knew how to teach dangerous things to dangerous people.

"Snapping his friend's arm - his friend, who was trying to get him to come  _home_. It was thoughtless. Cruel. In that moment..." she bit her lip, and sucked in a breath. "In that moment, he wasn't Ben."

Rey looked off into the distance as she said quietly, "And then I took Poe's place."

There was a strangled noise from Hux. BB had come down from his perch and decided to jump on the couch beside him and start headbutting him insistently. The burnt orange fur of the cat went well with the man's own ginger hair, and, perhaps unwittingly, he started petting the little ball of fluff. It was a few seconds after that he said, "He didn't- He wouldn't-"

"No, he didn't," she confirmed. "But, y'know, in some ways, what he did was worse." Rey tightened the blanket around her, and looked up at the man. "He refused to fight me. He treated me like a child who'd accidentally crawled into the ring. He actually picked me up and basically set me on the ground. There was no respect. No…" she scowled. "No honor. In any of it."

Hux's look of concern was almost sympathetic now. Regardless of his previous, harsher words, it seemed that he was finally realizing just what kind of toll seeing Ben like that, surrounded by kobolds and goblins and ghouls and banshees - all dressed as human but decisively  _not_  in their own way - had taken on her.

"Look, I'm not really a fighter like you guys, but, honor isn't really part of the equation is it? I mean, it  _was_  a cage fight."

"That's not the point!" she shouted, brutally aware of the flaw in her own words, "He's sending people to the hospital under Snoke's command and there's no reason for it! And what's worse, during the day he's pretending to be an upstanding Martial Artist while his victims lay in  _fucking_ hospital beds. And oh," she let out a bitter, sarcastic laugh, "this is the best part - he had the nerve to tell me he was in love with me and  _that's_  why he wouldn't fight me."

She'd never thought those words could have sounded so horrible, and yet she was proven wrong. Life truly was a bitch sometimes.

"He told you?" Hux whispered, awed. "He actually said it?"

Her eyes flashed to his. "You  _knew?"_

"I've known for a while," he admitted. "Probably longer than he has, but he didn't admit it until after your Black Belt promotion. He was..." Hux hesitated, and sighed, "Well, panicked, to say the least."

"Hux, I waited  _so_  long to hear those words, and he- he  _yelled_ them at me."

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

After a few moments of silence, he spoke up again. "So when are we going back?"

Since when was he the stubborn one?

She'd always taken the man to be practical, a little cold maybe, but good for whatever qualified as bromance between him and Ben. But never stubborn.

Rey blinked at him and tried to speak very slowly, as if talking to a dimwitted child. "We? Hux, I don't even know what  _I'd_ do if I went back."

"Yes,  _we_ ," he said, as if mildly offended. "If you think I'm letting you, Phasma, or even that Dameron kid go back there without some help, you're out of your mind. And," his head jerked back, "Wait, what do you mean  _if_  you went back?"

"Look, Hux, I care just as much about Ben as you do-"

"Rey," he interrupted in a surprisingly gentle voice. "Stop pretending. It's just the two of us. I know how you feel about him, and I've known Ben for a very long time...I don't think anyone else can get through to him like you can.

He paused, and added, "I'm not completely sure what happened between you two the other night, but, I think whatever you said or did might have knocked a little sense into him."

She stiffened. "Are you talking about what happened at Maz's?"

"Yeah."

She seriously debated telling Hux it was none of his business, but they were so far down the rabbit hole it was useless. "...he tried to kiss me."

Hux's head tilted questioningly. " _Tried?"_

Rey cleared her throat. She'd been desperately trying not to think about that night in the diner, because closing the door on him - no matter what name he insisted on - had felt like ripping out her own heart. "I told him I only ever wanted to kiss Ben, and I didn't know if he was Ben, or-"

She choked on the name, and for the first time she saw Hux's face drop, and suddenly he rose from the couch and wrapped her in a hug, holding her head to his shoulder. BB started purring comfortingly around their legs, interweaving himself between her feet, seemingly determined to rub as much of his fur on her as possible. "Oh, Rey," Hux said quietly, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry this is happening."

Once upon a time she may have commented that Hux wasn't the type to show much concern for anything other than witty one-liners. But once upon a time she hadn't been in love with a man who was busy tearing himself in two, and at the moment, Hux was the closest thing to comfort she had.

A dam broke at his words, and finally tears started falling on his shirt, just before he whispered, "I think what you said got to him. At least a bit. I saw him that night, after." Hux swallowed hard, and continued, "He was staring at himself in the reflection of the diner. I don't think he'd moved for hours. He was just...staring."

Hux shivered, and she got the impression it wasn't because of any cold. "I pulled over to the side and went to say  _hi_ , because I'd been meaning to talk to him about something pretty important and he just looked at me."

Outside, sprawling thunder began to roll through Coruscant, picking up speed.

"Rey, I've seen him through some pretty bad times," Hux said. His voice was as light as a feather. "But I've never seen him look so... _lost._  
  
"I tried talking to him, calling him Kylo and stuff, but, he didn't respond. The only response I got was when I called him Ben. He didn't even try to correct me. He just looked at me, said  _Thank you_ , as if I'd done anything of worth, got in his car and drove off."

Rey heard him sniffle, and for the first time in a while, she felt a brief bit of hope when Hux said, "I  _knew_  it had something to do with you. He...that was the closest to the old Ben I'd gotten in months."

She recognized that deceptive little note in his voice. Hope. Hope was a whimsical faerie that filled people with wonder and joy and the expectation of a better tomorrow at every opportunity. But hope was also a killer of men and a destroyer of dreams, especially when taken away.

(...but it hadn't destroyed her. Not yet.)

"Why is this my job?" She finally whispered. "I don't know how to do this, Hux. Why is this all on me? What if I'm not enough to bring him home, or even to get through to him?"

Hux pulled back and looked down at her sadly, then gave her a sanguine half-smile. It was a strange sight on him, different from his usual smirk or the ever-present smugness she'd come to associate with him. She could see why Phasma found him attractive. There was an elusive charm in a man who rarely smiled.

"It's not all on you, Rey. You won't go alone. And…" he took a deep breath, and said, "You'll be enough because you love him, and I think you woefully underestimate how much he loves you."

The man should be a politician, for all the headway he'd made since walking in to her apartment.

Her breath caught in her throat as she said softly, "I'm just so worried about him."

"I know," Hux nodded grimly. "So am I. That's why we need to bring him home."

She was terrified. Not of getting hurt - on some instinctive level, Rey knew she was willing to die for anyone she loved if it was necessary. No, what she was afraid of was failure. Ultimately it was Ben's choice whether or not to come home, but...but it was up to Rey to make sure he knew he had a home to return to, and in a singular moment of clarity, she realized the importance of that.

Hope and purpose surged through her veins as she met Hux's eyes and nodded. With strength she'd forgotten she had, she removed herself from under the cover of Ben's blanket and placed it reverently back on the couch.

"Okay, let's go."

The blanket was a great comfort, but she had the real thing to bring back.

* * *

Rey and Hux had been waiting for only a couple of minutes by the time Phasma showed up.

She'd been en route the entire time Rey and Hux had been talking. She'd haphazardly parked her Mazda by running a little too far over the curb and Rey's first response was to ask if she was drunk.

But the woman's capriciousness had apparently returned from its brief vacation, because all Rey got in response was, "It'll take a lot more than a handle of rum to get me drunk, sugar pie."

Rey wasn't sure whether she was serious or not.

They took the Falcon again, both because Rey didn't feel comfortable driving Phasma's automatic, and because Hux had a flat-looking two seater that probably had most of its cost tied up in its snobbish sports-car appearance.

They texted Poe on the way so someone would know where they were, but unsurprisingly he texted back saying he wanted in. His place was only a slight detour, and barely fifteen minutes later they were waiting outside his apartment building.

After a few moments of awkward silence as Hux and Phasma exchanged some low conversation, the plexiglass door to the building swung open and out came Poe.

Followed by Finn.

"Howdy," Poe said, waving with his one good arm. "Budge over, Hugs."

"It's Hux!" said the eponymous man, sounding a little scandalized. "I know you know the difference, Dameron."

"Whatever you say,  _Armie."_

"Can you please stop flirting with my boyfriend, and just move over?" Finn said from outside, behind Poe. He sounded annoyed. "It's gonna' start raining soon and I don't want to get wet."

"Well, you should have thought of that before coming outside then, shouldn't you?"

There was a brief scuffle of movement in the back as Hux moved from one end of the Falcon to the spot behind Rey's driver seat. Poe followed in after him, holding a single newly-cast arm aloft gingerly so as to not trigger whatever lingering pain there was.

"Heya Rey," Poe said, beaming brightly like they weren't going on a suicide mission, "Not that I'm complainin', I was getting sick of watching The Office for like the sixth time but what brought this on?"

"Yeah, Rey," Finn said, grumpily sitting on the far end of Falcon, behind Phasma. "What brought this on? Because I thought you know, that you promised you weren't going to do this."

She swallowed and tried not to look him in the eye through the rear view mirror. Instead, she shifted gears, taking special care to avoid the Falcon's tendency to backfire when moving from park to reverse. The road was silent as she began their travel.

"Not really," she said. She decided that, as their mutual friend, throwing the man in question under the bus was the right and responsible thing to do. "Technically Poe promised that. I was just there."

"Speaking of," Finn said, as if realizing just what kind of situation his boyfriend was dragging him into, "What the hell are you thinking? Why does everyone keep wanting to go back to this place? Normal people run  _away_  from danger, not toward it!"

She heard a swatting sound, and she was positive Finn had just smacked Poe's uninjured arm.

"Ow!" Poe cried out, but she could hear the smile in his voice, "Jeeze, I'm injured! Also,  _technically_ , I promised not to drive back there. Rey's the one who's doing the driving."

Another smack, and she heard Poe cough to disguise his laughter.

"Why  _are_  you coming with us?" Phasma inquired. She was wearing a simple, black-banded sweater that hugged her tall form. It was a palpable difference compared to her previous outfit from their last journey into the belly of the beast. "I know you don't really like Ben all that much. Not that I really blame you, after what he said to your crush last year."

Finn huffed and Rey was suddenly sure he was pouting. "I'm not even going to dignify that last part with a response."

Phasma didn't react much beyond a slow spreading smile and a wink at Rey.

"Anyway," Finn said, as they pulled onto the highway, "I'm coming because  _someone_  needs to keep you guys safe."

The three martial artists in the car all seemed to take a collective moment to process that before they each snorted.

"What?" he asked, indignant.

"No offense, Finn," Phasma started (Rey could practically see the cogs in her mind try to work out an appropriate nickname for her friend), "but what are  _you_  going to defend against, that we can't?"

There was more shuffling in the back, followed by Poe muttering a truly shocked, "Holy shit. You actually  _got_ one? I thought you were joking!"

Rey craned her neck in the mirror to see what Finn was showing everyone but had to eventually turn back to the road.

"Just came in the mail," Finn said, proudly, "I haven't had a chance to test it out yet."

Phasma whistled. "That thing packs a wallop."

"Yeah, well," Rey jumped in, feeling a little left out of the loop, "let's hope you won't have to use it." And then she mumble petulantly to herself, "Whatever it is."

Poe laughed. It was a loud obnoxiously bright thing, and Rey suddenly realized that he was probably still taking pain medication to help deal with the fracture in his arm.

"We're screwed," she muttered, as the realization of their situation started sinking in. It wasn't like Finn was just going to let them turn around and drop him and Poe off.

One doped up human Energizer bunny.

One potentially drunk Taekwondo Master.

One overly fretting man with a mysterious secret weapon.

One needlessly antagonistic redhead.

And finally, her, the girl from nowhere, who'd gotten herself into this mess by walking up to a Grand Master, demanding to be trained.

They were so fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A plan, a drink, and an unlocked door.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> Attack: We have our team up. Mission: Save Ben Solo is underway.
> 
> Onfire: Alright everyone! So, for those familiar with TV Tropes, I really wanted to include a Heroic B.S.O.D. for Rey here, because honestly, after last chapter, she's not just going to bounce back. We get a little more information on Luke's life, and his regrets. Things have finally come to a head. We're at the point of no return here! One more day, and Ben leaves Coruscant forever. One more day, and Luke heads out to Tatooine to uncover something he really doesn't want to, potentially playing right into Snoke's clutches. This is very much a setup chapter, but well, some preeeeeeetty important lines are spoken here.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	37. Black Belt, Second Stripe, Part IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, next chapter is the end of Act II, and I'll be honest, things are going to get crazy. But, good crazy (in my opinion). Ridiculous? Maybe a little. But hey, it's Star Wars, the universe that had Stormtroopers and walkers being taken down by angry teddy bears. Oh, and let's not forget the ridiculousness that was Han in basically ever mess he got himself into. Long story short, don't expect us to take the fight scenes too seriously. That's just not in the spirit of this fic.
> 
> Anyway...enjoy :)
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


Half an hour into the drive it started to rain.

The roiling storm had been building all day, so it didn't come as a surprise to any of them, but that didn't make the almost organic booms above them any more pleasant. The rain added a sleek, effervescent canvas to the world outside the Falcon. Interspersed between periods of steady cadenced rain were powerful, earth-shattering roars that threatened to swallow them whole.

"It's like a damn warzone out there," Rey heard Hux mutter in the back, after a particularly resonant thunderclap that all but came inside and shook hands with them.

Indeed, she imagined that the scenery could be compared to an old warzone. During some boring documentary Luke had put on once, she'd heard tell of people on the front lines of trench warfare falling asleep to the steady if not staggered plunder of artillery shells. She wondered what it said about them that they were heading straight into the worst of it, and not seeking shelter like sane people usually would.

Poe had drifted off into a nap after they pulled onto the highway. His gentle snoring filled the cabin of the car and mingled with the sound of the rain hitting the Falcon's roof. If Rey looked in the mirror she could see the man's head laying flat against the top of the car's low back seat, and she half-wondered how he was even capable of sleeping given what they were headed toward. She could see the top of Finn's head on his shoulder, as if he too sought solace away from the lunacy that awaited them.

Apparently Poe's meds had a habit of making him sleepy. A fact much appreciated by everyone in the car as, while not unappreciated, his brand of enthusiasm was exhausting, especially since his filter was turned off due to the meds.

Lightning seared the sky, splitting it in two and lighting up the inside of their eyelids with its intensity. As if on cue, the crash of thunder came not half a second later. It slammed into them with all the force of a tidal wave, and the Falcon seemed to whine and tilt, and for a brief moment Rey's grip on the wheel seemed to be nonexistent, and it was as if they were actually flying instead of just riding.

It was in that brief moment that Rey saw that Phasma was looking at her phone. She held it in her lap, brightness down, and was covering the screen with her other hand.

Double-checking that Finn and Poe were firmly in dreamland, Rey tentatively whispered, "Hey."

Phasma didn't respond. She only kept staring at the miniature LED screen in her hands.

Rey frowned, and decided to try again. "Hey."

She heard Hux make a very small adjustment in the back. He wasn't saying anything, which meant that he either knew what her deal was, or he was just as interested as Rey was and decided to leave the work to her. The man was an ass like that sometimes.

She brought her fingers up and tried snapping her fingers. "Phasma."

"I'm listening, sugarplum," Phasma replied, swatting Rey's hand away and cutting off the light in her phone, "I heard you the first time."

Rey made a face even as she hid the sting she felt at being so casually brushed off. "Why didn't you answer then?"

"None of your business," Phasma said succinctly, breezing past the subject like day-old trash, "How far until we're there? I haven't been paying attention."

Phasma wasn't usually the type to not pay attention.

"We just crossed the state line," Rey answered. She scowled but kept her eyes on the road. "Should be coming up in half-an-hour or so."

"Not at the pace you're driving," Phasma said, and Rey realized that this was more of that famed humanity that she so often didn't see from her front-seat friend. Phasma was  _nervous._  "You sure you don't want me to drive? I got us there last time."

"I remember, I was there," Rey explained slowly, if a little sarcastically. "I've got the same address you do."

A noise of discontent came from Phasma and Hux started to let out a laugh before the woman turned in her seat to shoot him a baleful glare as shriveling as any salted earth. Honestly, sometimes Rey wondered if the two of them ever actually stuck with each other out of some misshapen and mutated form of spite than anything else.

There came a minute of tense silence, interrupted every few seconds with Hux's quietly gleeful snickers. Then, Phasma turned back to her phone.

"So," Rey said in a tone anyone would have recognized as too-casual for someone driving down the interstate to their own personal hell, "are they at least cute?"

Phasma, already abnormally quiet and reserved, stilled. "What?"

"Your secret boyfriend," Rey said pointedly, not giving any indication to just how close to the surface several uncharitable and downright rude thoughts were. "Or girlfriend. I'm not going to judge. But are they at least cute? I mean. They've got to be if you're completely ignoring me while we're on our way to infiltrate an illegal fight club."

Hux...sniggered. God, sometimes she wanted to strangle Ben's friends.

"You want to repeat that?" Phasma asked. Her voice was measured and sober and terrifying in its gentility. "Because I'm sure we can find a nice secluded spot for me to introduce your face to my fist. It won't take long, I promise."

"I'm not going to fight you," Rey said, feigning calm because Phasma had at least a good head of height and a lot more controlled aggression than she did. "I  _am_  however, interested in why your head's not in the game."

"Like I said.  _It's none of your business._ " And then, with that said, Phasma crossed her arms and turned to look out at the intermittently lit up fields and trees dressing the sides of the road. "Not everything is about you or Ben, Kenobi."

From the back seat, Rey heard Hux sigh. "Ah hell, you got her using last names. Means she's pretty pissed. You might as well tell the girl, Phas, or I will."

"Hux, I swear to god if you tell her I'll-"

"She's been talking to Snoke," Hux said bluntly.

Rey nearly drove the Falcon off the road when he said that. She lurched to the left, straight over the rumble strip, and nearly plowed the car head on with a sign cheerily telling them the closest gas station was ten miles away. She regained control quickly by spinning the wheel back to compensate for the sudden turn at the last second and the old car responded joyfully. The Falcon seemed to sing as it passed the signpost with maybe an inch to spare, and Rey wondered if it was possible for a car to actually be haunted.

For a moment it was just like Han was there, cheering her on as she narrowly avoided scraping the paint job or careening into a ditch.

Time caught up then, and Rey shook her head, briefly shooting Hux, who'd somehow turned even more pale, a glare in the mirror. "You need to work on your timing."

Phasma snorted and muttered something unflattering about the both of them.

"And  _you,_ " Rey said, giving her the evil eye, "why the  _hell_ are you talking to Snoke?"

Phasma's glare would have been enough to melt glass and send Rey cowering once upon a time, but that was before the apocalypse happened - in the form of Ben joining Snoke - and Rey found out there were worse things out there than angry stares and scary blondes. The woman may have been intimidating and a little too aggressive for a conventional friendship, but Rey had learned that Phasma didn't do things unless there was a reason. Granted, much of the time that reason was her own amusement, but unless she'd gotten a lobotomy, Rey couldn't imagine the woman talking civilly with Snoke unless something extreme happened.

"It's fine," Phasma muttered, "I won't mess up the plan."

Hux cleared his throat. "Yeah uh speaking of, what  _is_  the plan?"

Rey ignored him. "That's not what I'm talking about," she said. She swallowed and remembered the unshed tears from the last time Phasma was in the Falcon. "Did he contact you?" A sick thought invaded her mind then and she couldn't stop herself from asking, "Is he forcing you to do anything? Because you found out?"

Phasma's response couldn't really be called a laugh, because laughter didn't sound like a punctured bleeding liver. "Bastard's not forcing me to do anything," she spat, suddenly tall and coiled and controlled hate, "He actually offered me a job."

"What? But that's crazy! I mean, after you quit and everything-" A thought struck Rey and suddenly the missing piece of the puzzle presented itself, "You didn't quit, did you?"

"I'm still walking, aren't I?" Phasma said, a tad resentfully. "No, I haven't quit my job. I kinda' value my head staying connected to my body thank you very much."

Rey grimaced. "You don't really think he'd kill you, do you?"

"Not really," Phasma said. She shrugged her shoulders and kept her voice carefully cool as she then said, "It's not his style. Death is...it's too clean for a lowly peon like me."

Judging by Hux's silence, he was just as taken aback as Rey was by the sheer acrimony in the other woman's voice. Apparently this was news to him, too.

It was a seconds before Rey worked up the courage to ask, "What happened?"

Phasma snarled, and it was a painful, raw thing that caused the hairs on the back of Rey's neck to raise.

"Bastard contacted me the Monday after that clusterfuck. He said...he said I was late for my shift." Outside the sprawling storm seemed to have ceased, if only temporarily. They'd driven into some howling wind tunnel in between tall towering trees though and the wheel of the Falcon fought and trembled in Rey's grasp as the car started to wobble side-to-side in the middle of the road.

"I'm guessing you went to work then, huh?" Rey asked. She felt the question redundant but understood that it was necessary to let Phasma finish.

"I did," she said, nodding, "and I did the same thing every single day until Friday came around again. I got up, I drove over there, I worked with the same people I did every day before I found out the truth."

There came a thud, and Rey looked over at her. Phasma had just slammed her fist against the passenger side window.

"I did it all, and I didn't even  _dare_  to ask anyone when the cement shoes or the black bag for my head were coming out." Phasma breathed out harshly and there was a ragged quality to her normally poised voice that shook Rey more than any word could. "I went back to work for the man who spat on everything I believed in, who hurt my friends and took pleasure in it, who very well could have ended us that night but  _didn't_  and all I could think was how I hoped he didn't think to look over at me."

Hux reached forward and grabbed her shoulder, a rare moment of express and explicit care between the normally bickering duo.

"Then, come Monday, again, the bastard sends me a text," Phasma continued, "He apologizes for taking so long to get back in touch and he tells me he's got a job lined up for me with his  _other_  business. Says I don't have to accept but that he'd-" Phasma looked down at the phone in her hands and scrolls up to some past message, "- 'be delighted to offer me the opportunity to advance my training' and that 'he understands that it's a big decision' so I should 'take the week to understand the ramifications of whatever I decide'."

Rey waited. She waited for Phasma to tell her where she told Snoke to stuff that condescending blackmailing crap, but it never came.

"...you're not actually thinking of accepting, are you?" Rey asked, quietly horrified.

Phasma looked down, and Rey heard her toss the phone to the ground. "I don't know."

"Phasma-"

"What?!"

"You can't do this."

"Well why not? I'm not like you, Rey!" she spat, seeming to tense up at the very notion of it. There was a living heat to her that threatened to expunge everything around her. She shrugged off Hux's hand with an almost dismissive swish. "Remember that? Remember how I did jack shit when we did this last time? I had to grab a drink just so I could calm down enough to come with you guys!"

"That doesn't mean you should sell your soul to him!" Rey's nostrils flared as she addressed Hux. "Back me up here! You're her fiancé, aren't you?"

"Believe me, you haven't said anything new," he said dryly, "She's a problem and a half at the best of times, do you really think I can change her mind when she doesn't even know what she wants?"

Rey made a half-noise of disgust at the back of her throat. "So you're just going to let it happen? Why're you even here then?" She'd thought the woman had gotten over whatever had been eating her, but she was clearly wrong.

"Because," Phasma said testily, "despite how I'm being treated, I don't want Ben anywhere near this mess. Just because...just because I might not be good enough to walk away, doesn't mean he can't be."

Rey's grip on the Falcon's wheel had turned painful. "I'm not going to let anyone else shackle themselves to that monster."

Phasma's chuckle would have curdled milk with how sour it was. "I'm not sure I have any other choice."

"What? Of course you-"

"What do you think will happen if I leave him?" she interrupted. She postulated the question like a teacher to a student and Rey wondered if that was just Phasma being herself or the defeat in her was taking reign once more. "What? You think he'll just let me go without so much as a 'by your leave'?"

"I swear to God," Rey complained under her breath, "the next person to talk down to me tonight is gonna' get it."

"Then stop being so obtuse, Rey," Phasma seemed to sag in place. "Every person, every professional contact, my entire career started because of Snoke. The man's worked with world-famous martial artists and it's rumored he's offered advice to some people really high up in the government and key members of Kukkiwon. If he wanted to he could swat me like a fly. Destroy my entire life in an instant, and he wouldn't even have to stand to do it."

"So...what? Better to live like a dog?"

Phasma's soft response was dead and soulless and Rey realized, completely without hope.

"Better that than to watch it all burn down around me."

They spent the rest of the ride in silence.

* * *

The storm picked up again not long after that.

There were no other cars on the highway that night, unlike the first time they'd arrived there. It probably had to do with the maleficent storm whorling above them and the ominous wind that came with it. The rain's pace increased such that it was a constant deluge, battering on the frame of the Falcon like a horde of a living bullets. As soon as they found the exit to Fire Lane 66, Rey pulled over and roused the sleeping duo of Finn and Poe.

How anyone could sleep in such a tense situation astonished her, but Poe had displayed a previous knack for insanity that beggared the imagination, so the fact that Finn followed his lead really shouldn't have come as much of a surprise to Rey.

"Whuzzat," Poe said groggily as he woke up, completely unaware of the nature of the conversation that took place while he was unconscious, "did we win?"

Neither Rey nor Phasma acknowledged the question, both too previously steamed from their earlier talk to offer anything. Hux just snorted, before reaching over and jostling Finn.

Once both of them were sufficiently awake, Rey killed the lights on the Falcon.

"Uh, Rey?" Finn said, his voice jumping from faint to alert and wary in the unlight of the storm. "What're we doing? I thought there was supposed to be a warehouse here?"

"It'll be off this road," Rey answered. She was rather proud of herself for disguising the tremulous quiver that threatened to seize her throat every second. "About a mile or two down that way."

"Alright, then mind explaining why I suddenly feel like I'm in a Stephen King novel?" Rey spared a glance to the back again. Finn was looking around outside and likely only seeing the various shades of inky darkness of the forest and highway.

_That_  got a reaction from Phasma. "God, you and Dameron are perfect for each other."

"Don't you know it," Poe jumped in, smiling and not at all looking like he was walking back into his own nightmare. "Uh, but, seriously Rey, what's the holdup?"

With a shaky breath, Rey put the car into first gear and start moving forward.

They creeped through the forest road. Fire Lane 66 was empty of any sign of any life, human or otherwise, and resembled a fantasy hallway that stretched for decades outward from a single point. She kept the Falcon in careful control the entire time, taking extra caution to be wary of any clawing branches that poked out from either side of the road.

There were a few minutes into the somber excursion when Hux said, "Care to enlighten the rest of your audience? Or y'know, just enlighten? This place is creepy enough without you adding to it, Rey."

"We got out last time because Snoke took pity on us," Rey explained, her voice sounding very far away as she navigated the long and winding road. "That's not going to happen this time. If we don't play our cards right, we're never getting out of there. What happens if when we get Ben out and we find out Snoke's turned the Falcon into a trash heap?"

The sign passed them by and Rey breathed out through her nostrils, not trusting her throat any further. Just the thought of that deceitful man even  _looking_  at the Falcon sent a terrible flood of fire up along her veins.

"The lot this opens up to is pretty big," Phasma mused, seeming to see what Rey was getting at, "You're thinking of hiding the Falcon instead of going into the main parking lot, aren't you?"

"Yeah," Rey nodded. "With luck, the rain and the lack of light will hide her. I'm thinking pretty close to the edge of the forest, near the exit we took last time."

Someone was chuckling. Two someones, rather. Hux had started, and Poe, probably not understanding but liking the sound anyways, had joined in. "Thank God someone's thinking straight," Hux said. There was a perceptible note of relief in his voice as he did so. "For a moment I thought we were running in without a plan."

Rey coughed, and was grateful the cover of darkness hid the blush on her face. She decided to let him enjoy that fantasy a little longer.

The crawl through the forest road, briefly lit by intermittent and blinding flashes of lightning, seemed to drag on for hours, when Rey knew it was probably only ten minutes at best. With the lights off, she had to be excruciatingly careful to not drive the Falcon into any trees or underbrush. It would have been just her luck if mission  _Save Ben Solo_  ended before it even began with her stuck in a ditch.

That would have been perfectly appropriate, had it been Han driving the car, and that both comforted and dismayed her.

Rey shook her head. She'd been thinking about Han an awful lot.

They pulled into the main lot, the road widening up into the usual dirt-compacted terrain and that's when Finn and Hux got their first glimpse of where the devils of the area had come to roost.

"Holy shit," Finn swore, as he noticeably gulped, "That place is huge."

"It's a warehouse," Poe pointed out, still too inappropriately cheery for someone re-visiting the place of his recent trauma, "Of course they're big."

"Except," Hux butt in, "when I heard warehouse, I thought it was like the size of an apartment building. Not something that could fit a freaking mall inside it and have room leftover."

The man's voice had gone up in pitch towards the end, and Rey frowned, taking a moment to look back at him. "We told you it was big."

The look he gave her told her he thought her estimation of what was ' _big_ ' need some re-evaluation.

She turned back to the front, muttering something about disbelieving redheads before she angled the Falcon to the left, and pulled into an area under an overhanging tree.

She killed the engine.

The tree was sagging, either with age or rot, and it's foliage was low enough to hover only a couple of feet above the ground, which made it perfect for hiding the Falcon. With any luck they wouldn't come out to find the large heaving branch, which probably weighed at least a few hundred pounds, resting on a new perch. The branch would cave in the roof of the old car as if it were tinfoil.

Everyone went silent as soon as the warm, content purr of the Falcon simmered down to mere puffs and then nothing, and within seconds the tension began to rise. Rey was once again grateful for the lack of light as she caught herself shaking as she pulled the keys from the ignition.

"Right," Hux said, quietly clapping his hands like some old-fashioned financial tycoon, "So, what's the plan here, Rey?"

Rey closed her eyes and felt something very much like laughter threaten to leave her then. She could feel the others stares on the back of her neck, and that only made the urge to laugh worse.

"Do we wait until he's in a locker room? Wait, do they have locker rooms in there?" Hux asked the latter part to Poe, who snorted and muttered an unintelligible response.

"No," Rey said, ending that thought before Hux could go much further.

"Probably too difficult to get in one of those," Finn said, chiming in, "They must have guards or something to stop people from leaving...right?"

"It's a lot easier to get in than it is to get out," Phasma offered, still watching Rey calculatingly in the Stygian darkness. "Most people aren't  _conscious_  when they do the  _getting out_  part."

"Right, so, locker rooms out," Hux mumbled, seemingly to himself. He was working himself up into a nervous fervor the longer they stayed there. "Are we going to wait here and jump him before he gets to his car then? He'd be pretty tired after that."

"Two problems with that," Phasma again explained, holding up two fingers. She lowered one. "First, we're assuming Ben's not just sleeping here for tonight. Near as I can tell, this thing can last all night. I'm not sure Snoke wants his prize fighter risking an accident because he fell asleep at the wheel."

The thought made Rey's stomach lurch uncomfortably, because  _dammit_ if it didn't sound true. How many nights had Ben spent laying in some crap-ass cot because he was too tired or beat up to even drive away? Suddenly those nights he never showed up at the apartment building made too much sense.

"Anyone want to tell me number two?" Phasma asked her captive audience.

There was a beat of silence and then Poe said, in a surprisingly serious voice, "Ben's fucking scary."

"Five points to Gryffindor," Phasma snarked, pointing at Poe like he'd discovered the Holy Grail, "Ben Solo is absolutely terrifying to face, and you want to surprise and potentially catch him off-guard after he's been attacked by who knows what all night? I'd rather slather myself in steak and run through the large cat exhibit at the zoo. At least I'd have a chance of outrunning the lions."

Hux let out a long-suffering sigh. "God you're a bitch, why am I marrying you again?"

"I think you've got it backwards, lover," Phasma said lightly, and perhaps deliberately patronizing " _I'm_  marrying  _you_. Your job is to just look pretty."

Rey turned to face them, both of them. "Guys, seriously?"

This was bullshit. Why was she still the responsible one?

"Just tell us the plan, Rey," Hux said, dropping the quarrel with an ease that would have had her questioning their relationship any other time. "I'm getting antsy being kept in the dark."

Rey wondered where all this faith in her had come from and where she could find some of it for herself. "I'm making him a deal."

"Okay," Hux said expectantly, and seemed to wait for her to continue. When she didn't he asked, "How are you going to get to him? I can't imagine the guy's hanging around the water cooler in between fights."

"...I'm getting in the cage with him."

Phasma inhaled sharply and uttered a quiet, mournful prayer for her sanity.

"That…" Hux floundered and gaped at her for a moment before he found his voice again, "that is a terrible plan."

There was a moment's lull as the other guys processed her words, before they reacted simultaneously.

"Wait,  _what?"_

"Are you insane?!"

They really were perfect for each other, Rey mused.

Another bolt sheared the sky and Rey saw Phasma chew on her bottom lip, seeming to consider the idea. The men each glanced back and forth at each other for a moment before by some unanimous understanding Hux was the one to continue diplomatically. "Rey, look, when I said we should come here I  _never_  meant you should try to fight him."

Rey smiled softly at the trio. It was strangely amusing to see them care so freely and without repression. "I know."

"I also know Ben would never even dream of hurting you, but I don't think he intended to hurt Poe and...well look what happened. The guy's a mess. No offense Dameron."

"Some offense taken," Poe said, seeming to take more umbrage with that statement than with Rey deciding to repeat the mistake that landed him in that position.

"He's right," Finn said, jumping in "The guy's massive!"

"I'm not going to fight him," Rey said, but that assertion fell on deaf ears. "Not  _exactly-"_

"-and I'm pretty sure I used to see him kick people in the head. Repeatedly. While holding back. While blindfolded. You seriously think you'll win this?"

" _I don't care,_ " Rey said, injecting some steel into her voice, "I have to try, and-"

"Rey," Poe said softly, once again unusually grim, "I think they're right. No offense. If he were untrained,  _maybe_ , but he's definitely not untrained. I love him like a brother, but...the guy's a beast. He's fighting people for hours each night, and he's apparently not lost  _once_  this entire time? That's...that's just crazy."

The cabin of the Falcon was quiet as he said that, and Rey couldn't muster up anything to refute his point. Poe was right. Even as off-balanced and emotionally torn as Ben had been the last time they were in that ring together, he was still physically superior to her in every way.

"I know," Rey said, nodding and feeling her hands clench around the Falcon's keys, "I know it's crazy. He's got me outmatched in every way that matters. But I still-"

"No he doesn't," Phasma interjected. Rey looked over at her and saw a small and somewhat apologetic smile growing on the woman's face. It would seem that she really was on board. "I know how you can win this."

The others in the car looked at the woman expectantly, waiting for this sudden secret strategy to be revealed.

"It might set us back a few decades, but it'll work."

The statement didn't really do anything to inspire confidence, but then again that had never been Phasma's MO. She was too practical and down to earth to be one for cheering. Rey nodded, "Whatever you have in mind - I need to win."

"Seriously, this isn't what I had in mind," Hux hissed. "Rey, coming here was my idea and if you get hurt that's on me!"

"Hux, don't worry. She'll be fine," Phasma said reassuringly.

"And what if she isn't? You won't even get a chance to  _be_  a widow, because Ben's going to murder me!"

"Hush you," Phasma said disinterestedly. She turned the ceiling light in the cabin on and started observing Rey. "The grown ups are talking."

Hux squawked and despite everything Rey smiled.

"Not that I don't totally appreciate listening all the foreplay going on between you two, but," Poe's brow furrowed curiously as he leaned forward, as if to see what Phasma was staring at, "what'd you have in mind? I hope your plan doesn't involve any more broken bones, because I can tell you right now, they fucking hurt."

Phasma smirked Rey, "Oh, you're going to love this." She paused for dramatic effect, and everyone watched with bated breath until finally with an elegant flourish and gesture, she said, "Flirt with him."

Rey searched the woman's face for any sign of a joke, and to her surprise, she was completely serious.

"Are you high?" Rey asked flatly, before looking back at Finn, "Did you slip her some of Poe's meds or something?"

"Believe me, if I had any on me right now, I'd take 'em myself," he shot back without missing beat, "because honestly, there is no way I'm listening to the same conversation you two are having. Are you  _seriously_ suggesting she get into a cage and flirt with him?"

"Dead serious."

Poe snorted and then giggled. It seemed he found the situation very amusing. Rey wondered when he'd heard the punch line to the nonexistent joke, and then imagined the whole world probably seemed like a very elaborate joke to him in that moment.

"Can I just ask, is there a reason we haven't called the cops?" Finn asked pleadingly. It had the sound of an argument repeatedly made and Rey realized he'd probably asked Poe about this several times in the last couple of weeks since he found out. "Or like, the FBI or something? Are you all insane?"

"Possibly," Poe chipped in, and then giggled some more.

Either it was infectious or everyone else was losing it because soft silky laughter bubbled up from Hux lips and joined in his seatmates titters. He snorted and, ignoring Finn's question completely, addressed Phasma instead. Rey heard the beginnings of a full-blown cackle start to break through his composure as he said, "Phas, that's brilliant."

Phasma nodded at him, smirking, gaining confidence as others began to throw their support behind the idea. "It'll work, don't you think?" She turned to look at Finn and said, "And, look, as far as calling the cops, last time I was here, I'm pretty sure I recognized quite a few of them. Snoke has friends."

"So our solution is try to and get Rey laid?" Either Finn was developing a twitch or he looked to be well on his way to a nervous breakdown. "Does anyone else see the problem with this? This is a terrible plan!"

"Oh I agree, it's ridiculous," Hux said, nodding emphatically even as the smarmy look on his face seemed to shine with some sinister glee. "It's also probably the only thing that'll work."

"Dude! Not helping!" Finn was waving his arms around in a manner, Rey thought but never would have said aloud, much like a chicken attempting flight.

Rey swallowed, and decided to finally speak up, especially considering it was  _her_  decision to do this.

"Well, what the hell, it's worth a shot." The words felt thick and heavy in her mouth, and despite the apparent bedlam breaking out in the car, Rey's mouth still tasted like ash. "Master Luke basically said that if I ever walk into a fair fight I'm doing something wrong...so I'll do it. Whatever it takes. I'll...uhh...I'll flirt with him?"

"Rey," Finn asked, and she looked over to see the deep well of outpouring concern and unease, "I'm pretty sure Luke meant something  _very_  different when he said that. Rey...this is dangerous."

There was something wrong with the world when Rey found herself arguing for throwing herself into an illegal cage fight, replete with fighters, bloody gashes, head trauma, and probably a smattering of concussions for the unlucky (as if anyone taking part in this shithole had anything resembling good fortune). Especially considering the heartbreak that she'd endured last time. She wanted to hug Finn then, hug him and let him know that she completely understood where he was coming from, but instead, she settled for words that would hopefully make it clear just how much this meant to her.

"I know," Rey said nodding, "I know it is. I'm not blind to the risks, but Finn….what if it were Poe?"

Finn reeled back, and true hurt entered his eyes as he looked at his boyfriend, still sitting there, observing the two of them with intelligent eyes and too much of a smile for anything short of a circus.

"Fine," Finn muttered sullenly, sitting back down. He closed his eyes to compose himself before opening them and meeting hers, and then nodding. "It's still a terrible idea though."

"Yeah, but it's  _our_  terrible idea," Poe said, putting a hand on Finn's which had taken to gripping his knees, "And that's what makes it the best."

Finn slumped. "We're doomed."

Poe looked over at Rey, winked then leaned in close to Finn. Her oldest friend seemed to startle back, but whatever protest he may have had was cut off as Poe sealed his indignant mumbling with a passionate, and completely contextually inappropriate kiss.

He struggled briefly for a few seconds before finally sinking in to the kiss.

Phasma's eyebrow raised and her mouth twisted in puzzlement before she nodded in approval. "Why don't you ever shut up when I do that with you?" she idly asked, directed at Hux, who was watching the spectacle with some amount of boredom.

Hux rolled his eyes even as what looked like an invading blush started to creep up his neck. "Because you  _bite._ "

"Yeah but you like that."

There. More of that crazy frenetic panic. The kind only the damned could truly feel. Rey pinpointed it in each of their voices, and it blared against her senses like a foghorn. These two were very truly close to breaking and it seemed in the spirit of stupidity that seemed to have taken hold of everyone else in the car, they were throwing themselves at it.

The kissing duo finally came up for air, right when Rey reached up and turned off the light. She'd allowed the light before because it seemed that Phasma actually had a point, and they were far enough away they could maybe risk it for a moment but enough was enough.

The storm had stopped again. Outside, the faint waxing light of the moon began to paint the world a fae and otherworldly blue. With any luck, the sudden illumination wouldn't give away the Falcon's position.

Seeing the dazed look on Finn's face, Phasma shrugged before turning to face Rey. "Okay, if you're going to do this, you can't be subtle about it. Ben...well, Ben can be a little oblivious."

"Uh,  _no_ ," Poe corrected, grinning like a loon, "Ben is a  _lot_  oblivious. Flirt with him? Are you kidding me with that, Phasma? She'll have to get half-naked before he realizes what's going on."

Rey jumped but kept her mouth shut. He couldn't possibly be serious.

The woman scoffed, "Believe it or not, that's pretty close to what I had in mind. Rey, you're basically going to have to ignore whatever filter you have. Say all the things you're thinking - just be  _super_  inappropriate and suggestive. It'll shock the hell out of him."

"What?" Rey squeaked. This was...not what she was expecting when she heard the word  _flirt_.

"It needs to be enough to distract him, and then, with any luck you'll get a nice sucker punch in or," she paused, "I don't know,  _something._ Basically, we just need him out of that damned cage."

"I still think we should call the police," Finn groaned. "I mean, Rey, I'm sure you'd be very distracting, I guess, I mean...obviously you're not my type, but-"

Phasma snorted. "Distracting? Trust me, he's been pining after her so long he's not going to know what hit him."

"Uh...pining?" Rey asked curiously, even as she internally winced. "Really? ...for how long?"

Here she was, halfway to hyperventilating from nerves, and she was not-so-inconspicuously asking about how long Ben had been  _pining._ The mania must have gotten to her too, because there was no way she could have expected this.

Han would have been laughing his ass off right about now if he knew exactly what kind of conversation was taking place in his car.

Rey shook her head, trying to clear it of old ghosts and persistent cobwebs of recollection.

"It's been a while." Phasma said, as if she hadn't just dropped the mother of all bombshells, "Oh you should have seen him the night we brought you back to the building drunk. It's really a pity you were too far gone to remember. It was adorable. Seriously, you really had no idea how he felt?"

Phasma rolled her eyes when Rey shook her head. "Well, congrats, you've got him completely wrapped around your finger. I can't  _believe_  that's news to you. You might be as oblivious as he is."

"Uh, wrapped around her finger or not, aren't we worried that Rey might get hurt?" Poe asked, bringing up the question of the hour. Trust the man not even in his right mind to do that. "I mean, I never thought Ben would hurt me either, but-"

"Tell me, Dameron, has Ben ever threatened to break someone's arms for making a mildly inappropriate comment about your flexibility?" Phasma asked, seeming tired of the conversation.

Finn grumbled something about dumbass boys while Poe could only dumbly reply, "Uh, no?"

"Hang on," Rey interrupted, "When did that happen?"

Hux started chuckling again, "Wow, you really aren't well informed, are you? Ben..." he snorted, "Well, he's a bit protective when it comes to you."

"And when he says  _protective_  he really means he's a ballistic psycho attack dog," Finn griped, before sighing. "And I  _really_  wish I could say otherwise, but...he's not a bad guy. If all this weren't happening, I'd probably like him too."

Poe's grin was mischievous and seemed to shine in the dark as he asked, "Probably? Weren't you the guy who wanted to invite him to a 'Bro's Night Out', along with pasty face here?"

"I'm going to pretend that's the drugs speaking," Hux said, voice seedy and somewhat beleaguered by everyone still talking. The man sounded...resigned.

"Love you too, Hugs."

Rey recognized another tangent building and decided to nip it in the bud, before it could turn into any more delays. They were all doing it. They were each stalling, postponing and halting themselves from moving further, and as much as she could sympathize with them, Ben was inside that building and every minute they spent talking just meant another where he was fighting for his life

"Okay, the three of us are having a talk when this is over and you're going to tell me everything," Rey said. "And, Poe, I know he won't hurt me, don't worry." She turned back to look at Phasma and shamefacedly asked, "Any suggestions on the flirting?"

The woman rolled her eyes again, and said dryly, "You did not just ask me-"

"I'll give you a hundred bucks if you straight-up proposition him at some point during the fight," Hux interrupted.

Both Rey and Finn choked at that, while Poe devolved into another round of incoherent snickering.

No, seriously, what the  _hell_  was wrong with Ben's friends?

"Oh, yes. Yes, that needs to happen." Phasma snorted and reached back to fist bump Hux, saying, "Can you imagine how flustered he'd get? It'd probably take him the rest of the night to recover."

"Considering how flustered he got over that mixed tape, I think he'd probably pass out," Hux commented.

Rey frowned. "What do you mean? Why would he get flustered over that?"

Suddenly Phasma went silent, and a grin grew across Hux's face as he breathed, "Oh,  _Phas_ , you magnificent, wonderful bitch. That really was you, wasn't it? You should have seen his face when that song came on."

"What song?" Rey asked suspiciously. Her eyes darted to Phasma. "What's he talking about?"

"Okay, so, the distraction thing," Poe interrupted, apparently back on this side of sanity (Rey kind of hated him for it a bit) "I could see that working. The uhh...proposition thing. He definitely won't be expecting it, so you do kinda have the power here. Plus, if you're suddenly really forward it'll confuse the hell out of him."

Rey was entirely sure she'd turned bright red again, but she pushed on and asked, "Oookay, I'll take that into consideration." Then she muttered under her breath, "Might need a drink or two first, but  _okay_." She cleared her throat and said, "Uh, what else?"

"I'm really gonna regret this," Finn groaned. "Okay, so the guy checks you out. Like, a  _lot_. I never really see him much but he's always got eyes on you."

Yeah, she was definitely red. There was something profoundly mortifying about your best friend pointing out that the man you love checks you out enough to be noticed. Judging by the shadowy nods in the dark around them, she could see that this was not just a one-time observation.

"That's actually a good point," Phasma said eventually, reaching over to tug at the hem of Rey' t-shirt. "Take this off."

Rey smacked her hand away reflexively, and gaped at the woman. "Are you joking? Tell me you're joking."

"Nope, take it off, cupcake. If you're doing this, might as well go all the way. What are you wearing under it, a sports bra?"

"Uh, yeah," she answered reluctantly. "Fuck, alright, fine."

She sucked in a breath and pulled the t-shirt off before she had the chance to second-guess Phasma's suggestion, and was left in her jogging shorts and a relatively decent strappy scoop-neck black sports bra.

Phasma gave an approving hum. "That's cute. Tell me where you got that after this is over."

Well, on the plus side, apparently Rey's complete and utter embarrassment in front of most of her friends had somehow reinvigorated Phasma's faith that they were all getting out of there alive. That was a plus... _somehow_.

That was when they saw a light. "Shit, someone's coming!" Finn hushed, and suddenly all the joy, all the wonder, and the mirth evaporated as the realities of the world shattered their all-too brief illusion of happiness.

The car - or truck, as the heavy crunch and tremoring basso seemed to imply - strolled by at a leisurely pace. Rey held her breath and didn't let go for years, decades, and centuries, however long it took for the diving light of the headlights to pass over the Falcon's position and move on, down the the exit road.

When it left every seemed to languish in place for a few seconds.

"I hate everything about this place," someone said. Rey didn't know who it was, not even if it was herself. The sentence seemed to sum up everything they'd been thinking, but avoiding saying.

There was a pervasive, occluding fog that surrounded her thoughts and she imagined the others could feel it too. A pulsing, beating, living thing that was going to destroy the world and all its inhabitants if not stopped - or at least it felt like it. In a way, a good portion of her world was here in the car, with her.

"Rey, look, not to rain on the parade here but," Finn closed his eyes as if the next words were enough to make him physically ill, "how are you going to get him to fight you? If the guy loves you he's not going to be willing to fight you."

Rey wasn't sure, and she wasn't really willing to either. But then again, she wasn't going in there to fight  _him_. She was going in to fight  _for_  him.

It was a good point however, and she didn't have an answer to his question. "I don't know," she admitted. "I...I guess I'll figure it out." And she had no idea what possessed her to say the next part, "And if something happens, I'll uh...talk my way out of it."

* * *

The warehouse hadn't changed at all in the two weeks since she'd last been. Not that she expected it to. That kind of place, full of its crevices and halls and deals and bloodshed, wasn't the kind of operation that just evolved into something else overnight. There had to have been someone to build the building, to pack down the lot around them, to have basically sequestered a pair of official fire lanes just for private use. Not to mention the complexity of the inner stadium and the electrical work inside.

No, someone had been patient in building this. Patient and corrosive, the man had probably planted the seeds of interest long ago, decades even, because the worst kind of evil was the kind that waited. A place like this didn't get built in a day, or even a few years.

It struck Rey that she'd never formally met another grandmaster other than Luke or Snoke. Both were as polar opposite in ideology and practice as a pair could get, but whereas one lived humbly, if a little sparsely, the other entertained indolent and avarice-ridden fools like he was hosting a cookout every night.

It was saddening. In a quiet, resigned kind of way that Rey recognized from the days when she could still hear Plutt haunting her dreams.

This is the way world works. You could either remove yourself from it entirely or let it chew you up, like Ben was doing to himself.

_Well, fuck that._

They emerged from the car and clambered out from under the hanging tree branch, with Hux providing liberal and vivid commentary on how much his very expensive rain jacket cost. It was amusing in a sense, but Rey and everyone else recognized the inane nervous ramblings of someone who didn't want to be there, but was sticking around anyways. The walk was a few hundred yards at least, but they made sure to reach the closest column of cars in short order.

Rey gulped when she saw the hulking man standing outside one of the entry to the warehouse they'd taken last time, and she was suddenly reminded that they hadn't included  _getting into the building_ in their already haphazardly-pieced-together plan. She briefly considered going round the back, but doing so without the cover of the cars would have left them exposed in the half-light of the crescent moon.

"Shit," she hissed under her breath, motioning for the others to stay back by the nearest column of cars for a moment. Hux raised an eyebrow at her, and she whispered an explanation, "Last time we barely talked our way in. How're we getting in this time?"

"Can we do what you did last time?" Finn asked.

Phasma snorted, "Likely not. Last time, this idiot," she gestured to Poe, "went in claiming he was a fighter, and I was his guest - apparently fighters get a guest for free - but since Rey was with us, he ended up convincing the guy that she was... _with_  us."

"With you?" Finn asked suspiciously, as Hux began chuckling quietly.

Finn looked over at Poe for more of an explanation, but Poe was busy practically whistling up into the sky as if he hadn't heard a word of the conversation. Rey had no idea if the man was still affected by whatever medication he took earlier or if he'd just been playing the fool this entire time.

"Wait, you mean  _with_ you?" Finn asked again, this time incredulous. "Are you serious?"

Poe shrugged, and started to smile in his boyfriend's direction. "Yeahhh- _ow!_  What the hell!" he exclaimed, as Finn started pinching his arm.

"Guys, would you shut the fuck up," Hux snapped. "I'm not sure if you've noticed, but we're really not trying to attract anyone's attention. And I  _highly_ doubt any sort of threesome actually happened, so maybe don't overreact."

"Dude," Finn said, his voice dripping in a mix of horror and annoyance, "Rey's like my sister. Gross, man."

"Really,  _that's_  what you're worried about?" Rey asked dryly. "We're standing outside a fight club, preparing to go in and challenge Ben to a sort-of fight, and you're worried about  _that?"_

Finn frowned, considering her words. "Okay, that's fair, but-"

"Children," Phasma warned, "if you don't stop your squabbling, I'll be happy to carry you into that cage myself."

Poe's lips curled and he gave her a stink-eye. "Has anyone ever told you you're like a scary boot camp sergeant? Like, the kind who tries to make people cry on the first day? And  _likes_  it?"

"I think I'm more of a Captain, personally," the woman admitted. Then she grinned as she added, "At least that's what Hux calls me."

A strangled noise escaped the redhead as he said, "Did you really have to tell them that?"

Even in the dim light, Rey saw Phasma smirk and roll her eyes. "Alright, dream team, we need to get inside. Let's just go up and claim to be spectators. I've never seen the guy at the door, so hopefully he won't recognize me. And," she took in a shaky breath, "if he manages to tell Snoke we're here, I can claim I'm checking it out again in consideration of his offer."

"Phas, you can't-" Hux breathed.

"We can figure it out later," she interrupted quietly. She was talking as if she wasn't consigning herself to something dangerous, vile, and a perversion of everything they'd ever believed in. "For now, we've got to get in there."

Listening to her speak, an idea blossomed into Rey's mind. She tried to dismiss it, but an idea was like a bad cold. It stuck with a person until they were sick of it, and the more she thought of it, the more the painful clenching and somersaults going on in her chest started to parade through to the rest of her body.

It was a terrible idea, an objectively truly stupid one, but...they'd tried playing it smart last time and look where it got them?

"Guys, wait up," Rey said, stopping the group from just walking into disaster. At least this way, they would have some notion of what was going to happen as soon as they got inside.

"What's up, Rey?" Finn asked, ever the wonderful caring friend. His voice was carefully modulated to hide as much of the effervescent miasma of fear that hung about him like a two-ton scarf.

"When we get talk to the guard," Rey paused and wondered if this really was the best way, only for her heart to chime back that it was  _the only way_ , "I'm gonna let Snoke know I'm here."

Her friends near-shouts, followed by Poe of all people shushing them, made her smile wobble in place. How was it possible to love so many people at once and wish they weren't with you at the same time? She'd never have wished a visit to this place on anyone, but here they were, ready to follow her into unknown menace and an almost assured guarantee that something terrible was going to happen.

"Rey, I know I've said this multiple times tonight, but that is a  _terrible idea_."

"I'm with Mr. Secret Weapon here," Hux said, jabbing a thumb at Finn, "I know we were kind of making a joke about it earlier, but this place is dangerous. If you grab that guy's attention one more time we don't know what he's going to do."

"He's going to find out anyway," Rey found herself arguing, "I'm not going to be able to get in that cage unless he lets me in."

"Shit," Phasma cussed, realizing what she was talking about, "that's a good point. The doors don't open unless Snoke says you can go through them."

Hux threw his hands up, exasperated. "Are we just not going for subtlety anymore? What happened to fighting smarter, not harder?"

"Subtlety probably stopped being relevant around the time we told Rey to take her shirt off," Poe huffed, before shaking his head in wonder. "And  _wow,_ that is  _not_ a sentence I thought I'd ever say. Are any of us good at subtlety anyway?"

Rey tentatively raised a hand.

"Not you," Poe dismissed, looking amused, "We've already established your judgment is in question. I mean, you fell for  _Solo_  of all people."

Rey wasn't sure whether she could be offended or bemused when every single one of her friends seemed to agree and nod in unison at the statement.

It took them all a minute to collectively steel their nerves and walk the rest of the way toward the massive bodyguard-ish man waiting at the door. He caught sight of them long before they were in earshot, but Rey saw him reach down to the walkie on his jumpstrap and say something into the device. Like before, the man was dressed sharply in a perfectly tailored and cuffed suit, looking more like a chief valet than a thug waiting at a checkpoint into the rivers of Hades. He looked them all over, and Rey felt a hint of relief when he didn't take a second look at her, Phasma, or Poe.

"Any fighters?" the man grunted.

At least he was more personable than the last guy.

Rey glanced back at the four people behind her before remembering that fighters got separated from the group. She wanted to do a little recon before instantly splitting off from them. Besides, despite what Snoke was probably going to believe, she wasn't there to play by his rules.

Before anyone else could answer, she shook her head, "No, just watching tonight."

The man's eyes narrowed, taking in their various states of dress. Of them all, only Hux looked anywhere near the usual dress code for this sort of place, in his maroon dress shirt and immaculately pressed work pants. The coat that he wore over the rest of his attire looked more like a general's coat than a raincoat.

"Five thousand," the bodyguard muttered, at last.

Rey gawked at the man. He had to be joking right? But the more she stared the more she realized this was the kind of guy who thought jokes were for people who didn't eat raw eggs and creatine for breakfast and who didn't go to bed dreaming of barbell lifts and whatever else passed for entertainment in his head.

"You're kidding," Finn blew out in a faint voice. "That's a joke, right?"

"Thousand a person," he explained, as if they didn't know how to do basic math, "I don't make the rules. Only fighters and their guest get in free."

Rey turned to gauge Hux and Phasma's reactions. She looked unsurprised, but Hux just seemed amused as he asked sarcastically, if not a little hysterically, "Sorry, I left my five thousand dollars cash in my other jeans. Do you take cards?"

The man at the door paused, just before reaching into his back pocket, and Rey could nearly feel the nervous tension surrounding the group quadruple. But thankfully, or possibly,  _unfortunately,_  the man returned his hand with a card-reader in it. It looked like a child's plaything in the man's enormous meaty paws.

"Well. Shit," Hux swore, reluctantly pulling out his wallet. "Okay, you guys owe me. Or, maybe Solo owes me. I guess it depends on how the night goes."

The transaction happened without trouble, a little extra slice of business that no reasonable authority figure would ever find out, at least if Snoke's setup took care of things as Rey imagined they would. She didn't know much about covering up one's traces beyond making sure not to leave any crumbs when scavenging Plutt's fridge, but Rey imagined the theory was more or less the same. Leave no traces, but if you have to, blame it on something else, if possible. She'd blamed mice for enough years to know the drill.

They entered the building, and Rey was proud to note that none of her friends shivered or seemed startled when the electronically locked door slammed behind them with all the force of a guillotine. They turned immediately to the left, and, after ascending the hallway they now knew led up from ground level, entered into the main area.

Despite the fact that the outside hadn't changed much, someone had clearly set the most indulgent, garish, and overall arrogant fashion designer loose on the interior.

Long red drapes hung from the rafters and catwalks that stretched across the ceiling. They were magnificent - a truly deep crimson that reminded Rey of the color of fresh blood. The fabric hung from eaves and beams and seemed to dye the entire area in hues of red so brilliant it would make a painter weep.

There was no roof above them anymore. There was a sky on fire, and war in the air, and Rey could feel her pulse quicken just standing there. The crowd, much like before, seemed to rove and rave and move to the whims of some imaginary master pulling their strings, and her teeth began to hurt just listening to it.

Above it all, there was a low, steady, quake. It took Rey a second to realize that it was not actually a seismic event, but more the beat of drums, constant, pressing, pounding, suffocating in its intensity, and it was coming from the centerpiece to it all - the cage. Each beat entered and left her, leaving her breathless and heady and in danger of falling to the sway of the madness that infected everyone there. It was a rhythm designed for battle, for the end of times and the vainglorious celebration to mark the forever struggle. People in the cage would only hear the drum - they would hear it and think only of the beat of their hearts and how to preserve that beat ever longer.

Snoke did say he liked drums.

They didn't mingle this time. Within minutes of them getting through the door, Rey could feel Snoke's eyes on her. She didn't see him, and she couldn't explain it...she just  _knew_. Somewhere, he was watching her, probably cackling evilly at the thought of how he'd use her to torture Ben even further.

Hux interrupted the eeriness she'd been feeling by grumbling, "Fucking hellhole...Five fucking thousand dollars...getting a fucking drink," before stalking off in the direction of one of the waiters milling about. The man was holding his hand to his head like he was on the verge of a migraine.

"Uh, I'm going to follow him and make sure he doesn't try to punch anyone out," Poe said nervously, "Not that he's usually a ray of sunshine, but... _yikes._ "

Finn nodded in understanding, took a look at something on his cellphone (he somehow looked even more nervous than usual). Rey wasn't too worried though, when she saw Rose's name at the top of the chat log. Their mutual friend was in an entirely different timezone at the moment.

"Are you really sure this is a good idea?" he asked for the billionth time. "Because, Rey, we could call the police and get out of here in five minutes-"

"Call the police?" Phasma laughed humorlessly, wrapping a chummy arm around Finn and directing him to a particular direction of the crowd, "Clearly you aren't looking at the local police commissioner, but I am." She subtly tilted her head toward a large mustachioed man in a tight form-fitting suit. "Trust me, calling the police wouldn't do as much good as you think."

He took a deep breath and turned back to Rey with wide, worried eyes, "Are you absolutely sure about this?"

No, she really, really wasn't.

"Yes, Finn," she lied, "I'll be fine. I promise."

Phasma gave her a look that indicated she knew the truth about Rey's opinion, but the woman nodded in solidarity. "He won't hurt you," the woman reassured. "We both know that. Just...remember the plan." Phasma cracked a smile and winked playfully, "I, for one, am looking forward to seeing Ben being too flustered to put up a proper fight."

"Just gotta figure out how to get him to fight me, first. Or,  _not?_  Fuck, I'll figure something out," Rey muttered. She sucked in a breath and said, "Okay, you guys stay here and figure out a plan for how we're getting out of here. I'm…" she swallowed hard, and glanced back at the hallway she was already dreading walking down, "I'm going to go.  _In_."

A firm hand handed on her shoulder, and she looked back to see Phasma's resolute face, "If anyone can do this, it's you." The serious look was quickly replaced by an unworried mask as she said, "Finn, you're coming with me. We're going to find the tech guys, or sound booth, or- I don't know, whoever the hell's in charge of the music in here. This drumming stuff is bullshit. I'll make sure we put something good on for this not-fight."

Rey nodded, flashed them a nervous smile, turned on her heel, and walked toward the hallway.

* * *

Getting past the first room had been easy, once she'd convinced her legs to carry her down the hallway. All she'd had to do was flutter her eyelashes at some idiot who held a bunch of papers with brightly colored numbers and  _oh what a shock_ , she was suddenly next in line to fight the  _Chosen One_.

Though, of course, she'd nearly punched half the men in the room, either for their leering or for the comments they made about what the  _Chosen One_  would probably do to her in the ring. They had some rather lewd suggestions.

Idiots, the lot of them.

Her nerves lit on fire and started screaming when she was called, and she took a deep breath before walking through the throng of people, taking care not to look at anyone in the eyes for too long.

They had dead eyes.

She reached the end of the locker room and found herself standing in front of the same door she'd demanded to be let through not half-a-month ago.

"Uh…"

She glanced around, unsure of what to do. Jiggling the handle, she found the door locked. There was a camera, obviously pointed directly at her, and what seemed to be a speaker/intercom system near the door. "I'm here to fight?" she asked weakly, wincing as she heard the tone of her voice.

Her blood started boiling as she heard a dark, scarily familiar chuckle, laced with barbs and dipped in poison. "What makes you think I'd let you fight the  _great Kylo Ren?"_  the monster who watched her asked. "I told you, Miss Kenobi, my student was generous when he allowed you to leave. I will not allow it this time."

"I'm not leaving without him, Snoke."

Snoke's voice was hungry and pitiless in its plunder through the locker room. Rey did a quick look around and noticed everyone, even the damn ticket weirdo at the far end, looking down at the ground in some kind of kneeling position, similar enough to knights before their king that she had to repress a shiver.

These were not normal men and women.

"What  _is_  Skywalker planning, hmm?" Snoke said, taking some sort of wicked delight in her being the sole one standing, "I never thought he'd sacrifice you in the course of his plans, but I suppose I didn't give the old fool enough credit."

Two things, jumped out to Rey in that moment. First, Snoke thought Rey being there was obviously some trap of Luke's.

Second, Snoke was on the lookout for something else. Some trick. Some blade in the shadows, like a man like him would expect.

"Master Luke doesn't know I'm here," she said truthfully.

"Oh really?" He let out more of that off-key laughter. "And I suppose he expects me, in my extreme generosity, to just let you face my student?"

"I don't want your generosity," Rey hissed. "You underestimate me, and you underestimate Ben, and it will-"

"Oh," the bodiless voice interrupted, "Have you seen something in my student? Some sort of weakness? Is that why you came back? You think you can  _save_  him? Tell me, insolent child," he said quickly, his voice dripping with cruel anger, "how can you save a man who believes he can't be saved? You and Skywalker - you  _fools_  handed him to me on a silver platter. Always pushing him away, always treating him like a monster who might snap at any moment, always demanding more and more from him while letting him believe he meant nothing." Rey could hear the malevolent smile in the man's tone, "Well, perhaps I should thank you both. You made my job  _so_  easy, didn't you?"

That...that wasn't true. It couldn't be - there was no way.

But, as much as Rey tried to tell herself that, thoughts raced through her mind, and memories refigured themselves as she saw them through new eyes. Through  _Ben's_ eyes.

She's in the Dojang overhearing a conversation, and Ben doesn't want to kill Unkar Plutt because he's angry. He just wants to make sure she's never hurt again, and  _his own flesh and blood physically restrains him from leaving the room._

She's at Ben's apartment making a delivery in the winter despite the fact that Maz doesn't do deliveries, and he's being cagey and evasive, not because he means to keep secrets from her, but because he's desperately trying to keep her away from Snoke, and she  _yells at him, tells him he's just like everybody else who's left her, and storms off._

She's laying next to Ben in the park, and he's bitterly explaining that his parents have thrown him away, and he feels unwanted, because he believes  _Luke only took him in because he had to._

She's sitting on the grass at the park for the second time, and her and Ben are yelling at each other because they're both sad and confused, and she's heartbroken. He seems cold and unyielding and he keeps telling her she deserves better, but it's not because he doesn't care. It's because he does, in fact, care, but the idea of  _someone actually choosing to love him is just too unbelievable._

She's moving into her apartment and Ben and Luke are snapping at each other. Ben's angry and defensive, but it's not because of what Luke's implying. It's because he thinks  _Luke doesn't trust him._

She's at tournament, and Ben's pleading with his uncle, saying he's been torn apart, and rather than trying to help, Luke tells him  _it's his own fault._ Twenty minutes later, Ben's talking to her about Snoke for one of the first times, and she tells him  _he's disappointing her._

She's in a cage and he's terrified and begging her to leave because her life is in danger, and she yells at him and insists he should try and hurt her. When he refuses, she attacks him and for the first time, she sees him disobey a direct order from his Master.  _All he does is meet her anger with love._

She's in the diner, and a sad song is playing on the jukebox. He's asking her to please, please love him, and  _she walks away, and she shuts the door behind her._

Ben was scared, traumatized, and desperate for love, but convinced he wasn't worthy of it.

The air left her lungs when she pieced together what she needed to do.

Rey steadied herself, and spoke to the box over the door in a firm voice. "Let me face him, Snoke," she demanded. "You want him to be Kylo Ren? You want him to truly  _not care?_  Make him lose the one thing he still loves. Make him fight  _me_. You know he'll win - you  _know_  he has every physical advantage in this fight, and if he does win -  _if he hurts me_  - it'll rip him apart, and Ben Solo will be gone. I guarantee it."

Despite the truth in her words, Rey wasn't scared, because she knew she didn't need to fight Kylo Ren.

She needed to love Ben Solo, and she knew how to do that as instinctively as she knew her own heartbeat.

The door unlocked.

Rey took a deep breath, and walked through it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Old words, a hero, and hope rising.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> Attack: The best way to win a fight is to never throw a punch.
> 
> Onfire: Showtime.
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	38. Black Belt, Second Stripe, Part V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you follow us on Tumblr, you probably saw that my mom knows we write fanfiction. (Hi mom!) It’s been a hilariously cringey lesson in realizing moms are human too and not nuns. She says she won’t read this fic, but I really have no way of knowing. Mom, just know, if you look around our fics too much you'll probably know a lot about us than you want to. Thank gosh for awesome and supportive moms, huh?
> 
> Anyway, mom, if you’re reading this you might want to turn back now. Or don’t. What the hell, right? 
> 
> Oh also, WE HAVE WAITED SO LONG FOR THIS CHAPTER. This is the official end to Act II, and I’m not going to lie, we made this a bit absurd but we had SO much fun with it.
> 
> This one is probably our favorite so far.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> PS: You may notice not all the lyrics are written in for the in-text song. That’s because the same verse repeats a bunch of times at the end of the song and I figured it’d be super obnoxious to put it all in.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


Rey hadn't had enough time in her last visit to properly appreciate the level of care that had gone into the design of the building. Poe had told her before that the strange coating of material along the walls of the ring, and even around the building, seemed to absorb sound and she supposed it made sense. Not even sound was meant to escape from this place.

The low continual boom of drums and nightmares greeted her when she stepped out into the hallway, filling her lungs with a pulsating battlecry that threatened to leave her gasping for breath. There was no light there, just like last time, and the dark vinyl of the walls seemed to blot out and swallow any light that made it down this far.

The peroxide and artificial smells hit her, just as Poe had described for himself when he'd been in her place weeks ago. Bleach and ammonia, not too strong to be dangerous, but a powerful contaminant on its own, danced and wafted into her nose.

And underneath that, like a flowing shark in shallow water, was the faint, sickly, and painfully familiar sour scent of fear.

Rey looked up, trying to spot any lights in the short hanging ceiling, and for some reason her mind was taken back to the basement beneath Plutt's house. She didn't know why - her old foster guardian had never had anything as nice as the cold and vacuous hall around her, but once again all she could her from the  _thump thump thump_  of the drums was the the  _stomp_   _stomp stomp_  of a man who hadn't been a factor in her life for quite some time.

Ignoring the ingrained, nervous reactions of her hindbrain telling her to run and scamper and hide, Rey pressed forward. She wasn't stupid enough not to recognize the atmosphere and the setting for exactly what Snoke had likely designed it for, but she wasn't going to cower and let the man think he'd won before she even stepped into the ring.

The crowd's voices had become distant roaring things, like the crashing waves on the opposite side of a beach. All Rey could hear was the rhythmic beat of her heart and the convulsive pound and slam of the drum beat from the speakers built into the very top of the walls that shaped the hexagonal ring.

Ben was there, hopping, circling the cage on the far side, throwing his arms up and down. He wasn't even looking at anyone, just screaming incoherently up at the cage, at his uncountable masters, a wordless challenge bellowing from his lips. The white patchy gauze from before was gone, leaving his entire upper body decorated like some sick game of checkers as over half a dozen bruises peppered his front and back.

In there, in the concentrated force of over a dozen speakers hitting her, Rey felt like she was going to be sick. It had nothing to do with fear or any other emotion. Simple biology was telling her to run. Run and duck and gibber incoherently as explosions went off in her ears.

Ben turned to face her - his new opponent - and stopped, shocked into stillness.

Rey met his stare and she trembled. She wasn't even going to bother hiding it, not when they were in a cage put to fight like entertainers of yore.

She saw him say something, but found that the nova of noise around them was too much. For a brief second, she panicked that the desperate, mad gamble they'd all bet their hides on, would be done in by noise pollution. Then, miracle of miracles, the drums began to slow before finally, they cut out in the ring entirely. The sound continued above them, but the acoustic absorbance of the ring must have been especially tweaked to allow for the hateful vitriol and acid of human words.

"What are you doing here, Rey?" Ben asked, and even if they were in a crowded room, it was just him and her then. Just Ben and Rey, friends at odds, and not Rey and Kylo Ren, enemies at war.

He sounded...tired. Worn. No longer the celebrated warrior, but once again the fatigued and numb man she'd seen in the diner.

"I'm here for Ben Solo," Rey announced, after clearing her throat.

She saw him close his eyes and clench his fist at his side.

"Ben Solo isn't here, Rey," he said at last, and she could feel the shreds of rusted metal tearing through his voice, "He...he was a fool. My name is Kylo Ren."

"Liar," Rey called out, and found herself smiling. For all that was wrong with the world, Rey knew one thing: she was  _right_. That alone reinvigorated her spirit more than any coffee or supplement ever could. "Ben Solo is right in front of me. He may be a fool. He may be rude. He may be an  _utter asshole_  at times, but he's mine. Ours. You have no idea what you're doing here any more than I do."

She walked a few more steps into the ring. The crowd was beginning to get discontent with the lack of fighting and Rey imagined Snoke was watching, observing everything. She could just imagine him sitting in a large recliner chair - a throne - as he watched everything on some plasma screen that stretched from one end of the world to the next. There'd be an intercom right next to him, something for him to speak into when things didn't look like they'd be going the proper way.

Ben didn't give any ground, and instead took a single step forward. He towered over her regularly, but here in this place of lurid impossibilities, he seemed an order of magnitude larger, a monster meant to scare children and destroy any dreams the innocent may have.

"I belong here, Rey," Ben seemed to vibrate in place, and she could see the quiver in his chest as he said that. "I told you. This-" he sweeped an arm around them, a circus ringleader within a cage, "-this is my place."

"Ah, I see now," Rey shook her head in wonder and shot him a pitying glance, "You're not a liar. You're just stupid."

Ben seemed to pace the floor, leg rising and lowering, like a patient bull, as much as a conundrum as that sounded. Much like before, he was glancing upwards, as if waiting for the executioner's order to begin, but where someone else would have seen a man terrified to move, Rey saw the opposite. Ben Solo was terrified of a good many things, she'd realized. Patience, care, kindness - but he still burned with the curl of something indefinable, something brilliant and lonely that Snoke certainly never snuffed out.

It wasn't love, but it was close to it. A softer, gentler, and, perhaps even mutinous with its pervasiveness. Goodness, maybe. Or maybe hope. Rey saw the choice between Ben and Kylo was still yet to be made, even if Ben had given up on himself and let his master choose for him.

But he was tired. Not just physically. Those were surface issues. Even if they got out of this alive (a worrying concept that had somehow been pushed to part bajillion of an infinite step plan), Ben was going to bear the scars on his heart for a while.

It was a good thing Rey was planning of being there for all of it, regardless of how he'd have her.

"What will it take?" Ben snarled, whipping his head side to side like he really was getting ready to bullrush her, "Leave me alone, Rey! I  _belong_  here! I can  _only_  belong here!"

"I did that once already," Rey said, somehow standing calm even after the confirmation of her fears. Ben had made the choices he did, but that didn't mean they couldn't have done more to help him. "I'm not leaving you alone again."

Ben seemed to advance on her, a roar of pain and rage so old she would perhaps never understand it in its entirety. His voice cracked and his chest heaved as he shuddered with the kind of self-hatred you woke up to one day to realize was your best friend. Perhaps he intended to scare her off when he howled like that. If he'd done that last time she'd come, she reckoned it would have worked.

She stood her ground, and did not flinch, and that seemed to pain and infuriate him all the more. There were mice that scared her more than Ben did then.

"You need to  _leave!_ " he brayed desperately, a hoarse and self-inflicted hark of chest pain racking his body, probably from overexerting one of the many wounds on his body. His cheek, still in the stitches from weeks before, seemed to twitch as he moved his jaw and grit his teeth in an agonizing clench.

Rey crossed her arms and cocked her hip. Time to enact the next part of the plan. "Make me," she challenged.

The intercom flared and Rey heard Snoke's voice cut through the silence like a wet saw-blade. "Did you come here to chat Miss Kenobi, or did you come here to fight? I understand you are serving as a decoy for Skywalk-"

The drums cut out. For a single inconceivable moment, there was silence in the warehouse. Beautiful, treasured silence.

And then she shattered it like a glass house.

"Hey Snoke," Rey yelled, leaping headlong into the insanity that awaited her, "Go fuck yourself!"

Ben gaped at her, dumbstruck. It was a look of awe and wonder, clearly at odds with the near-reverence he held for the man.

"Rey," Ben exhaled, saying her name like a prayer, "are you insane?"

Rey shrugged, and decided to echo what Poe had said when asked that exact same question earlier. "Possibly."

Ben's eyes seemed to vacillate between her and the cage above them, the ugly face of doubt and anxiety starting to take hold. "I-I need to do something about this," he muttered, eyes wide and terrified. He turned about and faced the hall that led to his locker room, apparently all too eager to escape the cage to seek another favor of his master. "Just...go back. Go back and wait for me to get you the all clear to leave."

She could hear the ocean roar of the people in the bleachers surrounding them begin to build. The displeasure was evident in the air as hundreds of people started to murmur and rustle in their seats.

There was yelling going on as well. Or at least, Rey imagined there was. Several someones were shouting back and forth at each other, and somehow Rey knew her friends were involved. Bless those idiots.

Ben paused, seeming to realize the same thing. "What did you do?" he said, turning around, eyes frantic, "Rey, who else did you bring?"

As much as she'd have loved to tell him, she couldn't. Snoke could still be listening in somehow and she didn't want to endanger their friends anymore than they were doing a good job of themselves already. "That's not important right now."

"Like hell it isn't!" He seemed genuinely frustrated with her, not just hopelessly trying to save her. "Goddammit, Rey! You-  _all_  of you need to get out of here!"

"Oh, no, Ben," she smirked, as if she hadn't just literally walked into the lion's den with a hungry lion who really wasn't picky about his food, "We both know Snoke won't let me leave that easily. Not after what I said."

Ben flinched at the sound of his master's name said sans title. It was yet another difference between Snoke and Luke. Snoke was all about the appearance of respect while Luke didn't give a crap, as long as you honored him in practice. Rey ignored his reaction and continued, "No, I'm not leaving, because I'm here to make you a deal."

He wasn't shaking, but Rey could see the tremors begin to build along his neck. His breath came out shaky when he said, "Please, Rey, I don't know how else to explain why you can't be here, but please-"

As she watched him reiterate how much he absolutely did not want her there, her mind couldn't help but wonder as to why he wasn't doing anything about it. He was so adamant about not fighting her, and telling her to get out of there, and yet he was doing nothing about it. He had every physical advantage there was. He could have easily picked her up and physically move her if he so wanted.

So why?

She watched the man she'd loved for years speak, and she realized something. She'd seen Ben only truly afraid a few times. She could recognize it in his bearing, the way he always kept one eye on her even as he seemed to pace and paw at the ground like a nervous predator.

Ben was afraid of her.

 _No_. That was wrong. Ben was afraid of what she represented.

"Stop," she said firmly, stopping him in his mounting rant. "Like I said, I'm here to make you a deal."

She stressed the word, and hoped that whatever force out there that had stopped those damnable drums from picking up again worked in her favor a little longer.

Ben seemed to hunch down, and his eyes kept scanning the cage above for something. "What kind of deal?" he asked, eventually.

The stomps and arrhythmic chorus of the guests finally rose to a heinous kind of hymn. She could hear the demands from the bored and casually cruel crowd begin to demand things.

Rey let it all wash over. It wasn't peace, exactly, but they were a separate problem for another time. Right now she had a friend to bring home.

"We fight."

" _Absolutely_ no-"

"I win - you put a stop to this bullshit," she interrupted. "You win, and you'll never hear another word from me about it, and you'll be free to do what you want."

 _Not bloody likely._  If she lost and somehow got out of there alive, she'd be back the next day. This time with a tank.

But he didn't need to know that part.

Ben froze mid-breath, and then shook his head as if he was trying to wake himself up from a bad dream. "You're out of your mind if you think I'd fight you." He swallowed hard and let out a disbelieving sound that was somewhere between a choke and a chuckle. Without further prompt, he turned his back on her to walk down the hall to his locker room.

Well, that was probably for the best, since she hadn't actually planned to fight him, but she couldn't just let him leave the cage. She had to do something. Something, anything. Him just walking away from her wouldn't solve this issue, and she just needed-

The words flew from her mouth, and they shouldn't have been such a surprise since she'd been thinking about Han so much on the drive over.

"Running away again, Ben? Are you gonna be like your  _dear old dad_  and keep making his mistakes?"

She winced. Oh,  _no_.

Ben stopped in the middle of his step, and jerked as if he'd been knocked off balance - as if the words had hit him harder than a bus, and Rey realized, with a pang to her heart, that they probably had.

She'd quoted the last words Han had ever said to him.

The last words he'd ever heard, from the man Ben thought had thrown him away.

He turned around slowly, his face a wash of shock and pain. "You were there," he breathed. "The night I left. The last time I saw him. You-  _you were there."_

Rey closed her eyes, knowing she'd never be able to take back what she'd just done. But it was too late to worry about that now, so she looked back up at him and said, "I've been here the whole time, Ben. You're the one who keeps running away." She shook her head and said dryly, "Y'know, despite his advice, it looks like you ended up repeating his mistakes anyway."

His expression grew cold, and he studied her carefully before nodding. Not moments later, Rey could see it clearly - the man she faced had put his mask back on.

"Rey, you're not a kid anymore," he said calmly, "And if you want to be treated like the adult you are, you have to learn that your actions have consequences. You showing up here has consequences. Maybe not for you, but certainly for me."

Her blood chilled at that comment, and she tried desperately not to wonder what it meant, but Ben kept talking, and she pushed the thought from her mind.

"I think I remember you once demanding that I not treat you like glass," he said, taking a few steps toward her, closing the distance between them. His eyes simmered down at her as he murmured, "But I think you forget how easily you could  _break_. Do you need a reminder?"

Rey blinked at that, because she wasn't entirely sure whether to be terrified or turned on, and  _wow_ , didn't that just sum up her feelings about being trapped in a cage with Ben.

Thankfully a more rational part of her brain took over and said, "Go ahead. Try me."

Well, shit, maybe it wasn't that rational after all.

Ben huffed. "Not a chance. You're leaving this cage, even if I have to carry you out."

She looked up at him, only a few feet away, mountainous in a way that had sent her shuddering before. He was a giant, a creature of battle, and she knew as good as she was, he dwarfed her prowess.

And yet, she smirked. She could feel the uproar skyrocket of the crowd as they each assumed fighting stance. "You'll have to catch me first."

Rey wasn't entirely sure where the bravado was coming from. Maybe she was channeling Poe or Phasma, or something with a much smarter mouth than hers, because  _holy shit_  she was pretty sure she'd just suggested a game of keep-away, except she was the ball and Ben was a lot more angry and intimidating than most potential opponents.

There was laughter in her ears. Laughter that sounded a little too much like the late Solo. Or, maybe, it was just her own sanity, bidding her adieu and thanking her for all the fun times.

She noticed him shiver as his eyes trailed down her neckline, stopping when he realized how much skin she'd left exposed. He seemed to trip over some internal reflex he had, because she saw him twitch, and his mouth gaped a bit before he looked away and coughed into his hand.

Well if nothing else, his reaction was a hell of a compliment.

Ben rolled his eyes and shook his head. He started glancing around the cage anxiously, never letting his eyes linger on her any longer than strictly necessary. "Rey, I'm pretty sure I can pick you up one-handed. This isn't much of a fair fight."

Oh, she knew. She'd had fantasies about pretty much exactly that, and  _wow,_  her libido had picked the absolute worst time to kick in.

"You're right. This isn't a fair fight at all." She looked up at him coyly through her eyelashes, "You don't stand a chance."

He glowered over at her, and then murmured, "Oh, is that how it's gonna be?" His dark eyes swept down over her body again and he shook his head. He was all muscle, thick cords of perfection toned and sculpted over years for prime fighting condition. When he moved, it was with a sinuous and feline grace that most people would never be able to mimic. He rolled his neck, as if he wasn't taking her seriously.

"Dangerous game you're playing there, Rey." He paused for a moment, and huffed. "But, sure. Let's  _play."_

What. The.  _Fuck._

Her heart started pounding, and that was when the speakers picked back up again. Within seconds the sound of an 80's style synthesizer and drumbeat replaced the boulder-like crashes that had subsumed the warehouse just a few minutes before.

Rey licked her lips and finally cracked a smile. There was no doubt in her mind that Phasma had picked the song, and if the situation hadn't been so dire, she'd have died laughing.

"Here's the deal, Ben," she announced, "Go ahead - feel free to try and make me leave. But, I plan to win a fight against you." She reached up and flipped her hair back, and started tying it into a ponytail. "Whoever gets their way by the end of the song wins."

There was a loud smashing from above them, and the humor in his face drained as he seemed to flinch, but it wasn't to do with them. There were people running up and down the catwalks far above and someone had dropped something into the crowd.

Rey looked back to Ben and her mind went blank and she sucked in air through clenched teeth. Somehow  _that_  was the moment her mind decided to repeatedly remind her that he was shirtless, and her eyes trailed down his chest, following beads of sweat to the low, deep v at the edge of his shorts.

Fuck _,_ it looked like she wasn't the only one who planned on playing dirty. Maybe he wasn't quite as oblivious as their friends thought.

There was a dark kind of amusement dancing in his eyes as he raised an expectant eyebrow. "Hey, if you're going to be wearing that, it's only fair."

Then the song's lyrics started, and Rey nearly lost her composure for an entirely different reason.

> " _Where have all the good men gone,_
> 
> _And where are all the gods?"_

Rey still found herself unabashedly staring, and felt her face redden.

Ben for his part, looked like he didn't know whether to be amused or annoyed. "You know they're expecting a fight, right? At least help me out here."

> " _Where's the streetwise Hercules_
> 
> _To fight the rising odds?"_

He brought his right arm across his front and held it with his left, in a stretch that showed off even  _more_  of his skin. And then he repeated with the other side, and a fusebox of thrills discharged their payloads throughout her body as she watched him.

> " _Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?_
> 
> _Late at night I toss and I turn, I dream of what I need!"_

The cocky look on his face confirmed it. She'd been caught staring. He didn't grin - she hadn't seen him smile even once since the hospital, but for the first time in a while, she could see the ghost of a smile on his lips. He looked furtively above, and, in a moment of defiance that sent her heart soaring, gave her a flirty,  _saucy_  wink she'd never have expected to see from him in a million years _._

> " _I need a hero,_
> 
> _I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night."_

Rey took a deep breath and then made a point of tilting her head, and let her eyes slowly run down his body, before coming back up to meet his.

Stupid. This was stupid. She should have come up with a sane, responsible, and above all sensible plan.

> " _He's gotta be strong,_
> 
> _And he's gotta be fast,_
> 
> _And he's gotta be fresh from the fight."_

But sensible and logical hadn't worked before, so it was time to try something else.

"You know, I can imagine plenty of things we could do instead of fighting that they'd have more fun watching. They'd probably pay more to see it, too."

> " _I need a hero,_
> 
> _I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light."_

_Holy shit._ She had to keep herself from slamming her hand to her mouth. She couldn't believe she'd just said that.

When she saw the astonished look on his face, something clicked in Rey's mind. Phasma had fucking  _nailed_  it. This was going to work beautifully.

> " _He's gotta be sure,_
> 
> _And he's gotta be soon,_
> 
> _And he's gotta be larger than life,_
> 
> _Larger than life."_

He blinked and looked away, before the music caught his attention.

"Okay, what the fuck is this song?" Ben snapped, glancing, annoyed in the direction of the speaker system.

Rey did her best to hold back giggles. Phasma was an unconventional, rude, all around bitch, but she was also the  _best_. As soon as the night was over, one of Rey's top priorities was going to be finding a way to thank her for what she was sure would be an absurd story someday.

She grinned broadly. "I think it's perfect, actually."

Ben gave Rey an exasperated look and scoffed. "I'm no hero, Rey."

"Oh, how  _very_  chauvinistic of you," she smirked. "You're not the hero of this story, Ben."

> " _Somewhere after midnight,_
> 
> _In my wildest fantasy._
> 
> _Somewhere just beyond my reach,_
> 
> _There's someone reaching back for me."_

Without warning, he bull rushed her. He held his arms out, and he crossed the space between them in less than a second. For a brief instant it looked like he was going to get her, and then Rey, through instincts born from years of spinning in place on a pair of wheels, jerked left at the last moment and escaped through the gap in his arms.

She came up to see him shaking his head at her. "You can't save me." A flash of pain swam across his face before he schooled it. "There's nothing to save."

> " _Racing on the thunder and rising with the heat-_
> 
> _It's gonna take a superman to sweep me off my feet!"_

"Agree to disagree. I still see the good in you. I wouldn't be here if I didn't," Rey said. She gulped as she watched him begin the next approach. She knew Ben wasn't going to hit her, but he was vast absurdly swift for a man his size. All he'd need is one hand on her and she'd never get away.

He began circling her, a lion to a gazelle. His eyes were awash with calculations and plans and a burning that would set the world on fire if it went too long. "You're wrong," he argued, his voice taking on the rhetoric of a man who spoke by rote, "Ben Solo is gone."

> " _I need a hero,_
> 
> _I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night."_

Rey sneered. "Not if I have any say in it."

This time, he didn't charge her all at once. He feinted, first left, then right, and, in the middle of her confused reactions to both, hooked her lead leg with a sweeping push of his left foot.

> " _He's gotta be strong,_
> 
> _And he's gotta be fast,_
> 
> _And he's gotta be fresh from the fight."_

It threw her balance sideways, and she began to fall to the side. He was already twisting, ready to catch her and carry her away from this nightmare.

> " _I need a hero,_
> 
> _I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light."_

Instead she snarled, and twisted her body, turning her fall into a controlled tumble away from Ben's grasp. Her whole body protested the decision, even as she stood and backed away from Ben's curious, yet hungry gaze. He turned to face her with a lazy and beguiling ease.

> " _He's gotta be sure,_
> 
> _And he's gotta be soon,_
> 
> _And he's gotta be larger than life."_

" _Shit_  you're faster than I expected," she muttered under her breath. Rey started to realize her plan to just avoid him wasn't going to be easy, and, much to her chagrin, she came to the conclusion that Phasma's plan was better, so she piped up and added, "Hopefully that doesn't apply to everything about you."

> " _I need a hero,_
> 
> _I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night."_

Ben just tilted his head curiously at her. Dammit. Apparently subtle wasn't going to work.

Rey cleared her throat and said casually, "So is it true, what they said about guys with big hands?"

He stopped his next advance and frowned. "What are you talking about?"

 _Oh God_  was she really going to have to spell it out?

"Oh, you know," Rey shrugged. "You have big hands. I've always wondered if you were big everywhere."

His cautious and haltingly patient steps hiccuped, and she saw his inherent awkwardness assert itself. After a moment he composed himself and then said lowly, "Wanna find out, sweetheart?"

 _Yes._  Yes she did, but apparently, Ben was trying to play along and that-  _well_ , that was just hilarious. Hot, but hilarious.

"Oh are you trying to make  _me_  get all flustered?" she laughed. "That's cute Ben, but I've been touching myself to the thought of you for years so trust me, there's nothing you can say that I haven't already thought of."

Rey could barely contain herself when she caught his reaction to that. He'd been just about to attempt another grab at her, but he just stopped, suddenly caught in a coughing fit befitting a man three times his age. She took the opportunity to dance around him a little bit more, humming appreciatively as more of his body presented itself to her.

> " _Up where the mountains meet the heavens above,_
> 
> _Out where the lightning splits the sea,_
> 
> _I could swear that there's someone somewhere watching me."_

She heartily approved of his decision to go shirtless.

"I- I-" he stammered, and then simply gave up trying to talk. Then he swallowed hard, shook his head, and cleared his throat. There was a blush in full bloom on his face and his ears. "Rey, I know what you're trying to do, and it's not going to work."

"Kinda seems like it already is," Rey snorted, "or did you mean to freeze up back there?"

> " _Through the wind and the chill and the rain,_
> 
> _And the storm and the flood,_
> 
> _I can feel his approach_
> 
> _Like the fire in my blood."_

Ben hastily blew away a hanging bang of hair from his face. His breathing, still a deep irregular inhale, exhale, seemed to quicken even further. "Keep it up, Rey," he warned. Even she could tell he was having a hard time focusing on trying to get her out of the cage. "Go ahead, keep saying shit like that. You're not going to like what I do about it."

Actually, she was pretty sure she would.

She hummed, and replied sweetly, "And what if I do, Ben? What  _are_ you going to do about it? How would you want to punish me?"

His only reply was a frustrated exhale, and forgoing all proper form he stood up and started walking over to her in fast, clipped, steps. He reached out with both hands for a bear hug, and and she ducked away. Mimicking his earlier move, she faked left, followed by right, and then as she was heading right she planted her weight on her back foot, and practically pirouetted away.

> " _I need a hero,_
> 
> _I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night."_

Ben let out a bestial and frustrated roar. There was no style to the way he stood now, only a tall, gasping man who was desperate to save a girl who refused to leave him.

> " _He's gotta be strong,_
> 
> _And he's gotta be fast,_
> 
> _And he's gotta be fresh from the fight."_

The crowd above them had begun to revolt. This was not the brutal fight they'd come to see. It was funny, but MMA rules actually disallowed this kind of keep-away. For once, the  _no rules_  aspect of the cage was working in her favor.

"Oh, are you getting tired?" she teased, smiling mockingly. She raised an eyebrow and practically skipped backwards and away from Ben as he started walking towards her again, "What a shame. I was hoping your stamina would be better. I can help you work on that, if you'd like."

Well, they'd agreed on no-filter, right? She could only hope their friends couldn't hear her because  _wow_  would they give her shit for this later.

Ben growled, "There's nothing wrong with my stamina. Do you really think  _now_  is the right time to comment on it?" He swiped at her halfheartedly, only for her to bob her head and let it cross overhead. "You do realize where we are, don't you?"

> " _I need a hero,_
> 
> _I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night."_

She skidded away, suddenly aware of how close he was. Her heart promised to burst from her chest the longer she did this. Yeah, it was fun, but  _dear lord_  was it stressful. Good thing some wicked, ravenous part of her was having the time of her life.

> " _He's gotta be strong,_
> 
> _And he's gotta be fast,_
> 
> _And he's gotta be fresh from the fight."_

"Just making an observation," she winked. "Maybe you could prove me wrong when we get outta here."

"Uh,  _excuse me?"_ he stammered, stopping in his next attempt to grab her.

She bit her lip as she took in the sight of his half naked form and decided that this was either the best plan ever, or she was about to lose in the most ridiculous and embarrassing fashion.

"Oh, Ben," she purred, "I think you heard me, and I think you know exactly what I meant."

He was gaping. Staring. His mouth was open trying to make noises, but only the incoherent garbling of a drowning man came out. She could hear laughter and catcalls rise from the crowd but she didn't care. It was kind of a huge compliment that she'd shocked him speechless.

> " _I need a hero,_
> 
> _I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night."_

Eventually he relaxed, running a hand through his hair. "Fucking hell, Rey," Ben said, sounding more like himself than she'd heard in months, "you can't just say shit like that to people. Did...uh..." He rose to his full-height and then looked down at his feet bashfully. His hands made grabbing and grasping motions at empty air, beside him. "Did you seriously just offer me sex in the middle of a fight?"

Rey laughed, both to swallow the terror beginning to rise in her gullet, and because Ben really was oblivious. She raised an eyebrow, and chuckled before saying in a positively predatory tone, "Oh, absolutely."

"What's your goal here, Rey?" He asked, narrowing his eyes. There was honest shock in his voice. Shock and suspicion. "Why are you bothering? We both know what I've done. I've hurt people. Destroyed them. I picked them apart and broke them from the inside out." There was a violent angry pulse to the scar on his face. "It's unforgivable. We both know I'm a monster."

He said it like he believed it. He said it like he didn't know it broke her heart to hear.

"You're wrong, Ben."

He let out another primal roar, as if to argue otherwise. Before she could say anything else he charged at her. She yelped, turned and lunged away, escaping Ben's quick bear hug at where she'd been.

He didn't stop. Seeing her run seemed to spur him on, and with a hefty exhale he crossed the distance between the two of them in one step. Rey, disoriented but still in control, saved herself by pure nerve.

Banking on his ingrained instinct to avoid hurting her, Rey spun in place and ran  _at_  him instead of away. He jerked, as if unsure of what to make of the sudden change in vectors and then, seeing her about to collide with him, he moved his arms up out of the way at the last second, so she wouldn't run clothesline herself on his arms. She passed him by mere millimeters.

There was something stupidly hot about the way he kept trying to grab her.

Rey kept running instead of turning back to face him. The ring was immense, over fifty feet from point to point, with hallways on each end. She ran and didn't turn back when she heard him begin to take huge lumbering steps after her. He'd overtake her in seconds.

She didn't even have seconds. The flat wall of the hexagonal ring was a few feet away and she was headed for it fast. Whether she veered right or left, Ben would catch her anyways. Despite everything she still hadn't managed to distract him enough to get any hits in, and she had no doubt Ben fully intended on carrying her out of there, flirtation or no.

And then she thought of something  _very_  stupid.

Praying she didn't end up breaking a leg or a rib or something ridiculous like that, Rey leapt at the last second before she hit the wall. She heard Ben squawk or mutter something about her sanity just as she turned, and  _kicked_  off the vertical surface. Her knee jilted, but didn't break, and she flew away from the wall...

Straight into Ben's suddenly unsuspecting arms.

He caught her with a breathless gasp. His arms caught her in a hold so tender even he was probably surprised, and she tightened her legs around his waist.

"You aren't the monster here," Rey whispered, suddenly closer to him than she'd ever expected to get. She burned his awed gaze into her memory and knew she was going to remember that moment perfectly for the rest of her life. "Even if you were," she whispered, eyeing his lips and noticing the sudden naked worship in his expression, "Monster or not, you're mine."

"Rey..." Ben uttered, and he said it with such piety she could hear the fear and the pain and the years and years of rejection in his voice.

"I love you, Ben Solo."

Before he could react, she took a chance - a chance that would change everything.

Rey wrapped her arms more tightly around his neck and pulled him into a kiss. She moved her lips roughly -  _passionately_  - against his, pouring into the movement every memory, and every bit of fire she'd felt for him for so many years.

Every time he'd pulled her into his arms, and she remembered he was her  _home_.

Every time she'd gotten lost in his warm brown eyes.

Every time he'd put his lips to her forehead.

Every time he'd called her  _starlight_.

It was ecstasy and a burning that would would never leave her, and she threw herself onto the pyre, luxuriating in the feeling.

After a moment's pause, he started to return the kiss in kind, groaning into her as his arms tightened around her waist, and under her hips. Her hands moved from his neck and tangled in the hair she'd longed to run her fingers through, and Ben  _purred_  at that, and his reaction sent heat rushing through her body.

The moment her lips had met his, she knew she'd been dead wrong. She'd always thought their first kiss would be soft, tender - a fleeting thing that left her with goosebumps, but this...well,  _this_  was all fire and brimstone and pure heat.

It seemed like the entire place had gone silent. Though, they could have been in the middle of a parade, and she still only would have cared about sucking at Ben's bottom lip, and the filthy sort of noises it garnered from him.

Kissing Ben Solo was going to burn her alive and she welcomed the flames.

* * *

Phasma sucked in a breath in between her teeth when she saw the bonehead move of Rey jumping off a wall. Whatever the girl had been saying had worked, because Ben -  _not_  Kylo as she'd so shamefully called him once - had been getting more and more unsteady with each passing second.

Still, jumping off a wall was a terrible idea.

But then she saw Ben catch her. The cameras showing the fight from various angles switched to a different one, this one zoomed to the space between their faces.

Phasma couldn't hear anything amongst the din of the warehouse, but she damn well recognized those three words Rey said.

The kiss was just icing on top of the cake.

Finn, who sat beside her in their not-so-hidden aisle of seats, choked. "Is- Is she- ?"

Really, he had no room to be surprised about anything. Not after the stunt he pulled once they found the soundbooth. They were lucky they hadn't gotten arrested yet.

Hux had gone and gotten unintentionally drunk when he'd stalked off earlier, and now he and Poe were too busy clapping, hooting, whistling and being all around nuisances as they watched the girl they'd all pegged as simultaneously brave and stupid make out with their mutual friend. The idiots were the only two actually celebrating what was going on.

Phasma groaned, and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Yeah. Yeah she did. She  _really_  did. Well, if Snoke wasn't pissed off before, I'd say that probably did the trick. The  _Chosen One_ , locking lips in the middle of a not-fight with his opponent. Didn't she say she was going to fight him? What the  _fuck_  goes on at Luke's Dojang?"

Finn continued to watch the couple in the ring, shock still settling nicely into his system. After a moment, nervous giggles started pouring out of him. "This is all your fault," he snickered, "You're the one who said  _flirt with him_. Look how well that turned out! Well done, Phasma," he applauded, and she was tempted to twist his ear for the impertinence. "We might not make it out of here alive, but hey, at least you finally got them to kiss."

"Yeah, I said  _flirt_  with him, not jump on him and make out with him in front of a massive audience!" Phasma hissed. Then she looked back to the cage and sighed before muttering dryly, "Dear  _Lord_ , they're still going at it. Well, fuck it. Whatever. It's taken them long enough."

* * *

After an eternity, Rey surfaced for air and found herself staring directly into Ben's dark gaze as they both caught their breath. He seemed frozen, as if he couldn't believe what she'd just done.

To his credit, kissing likely wasn't a common move in the cage.

His chest was still heaving when he blinked.

Once.

Twice.

And then he didn't hesitate any longer. Not even for another second.

No, instead, Ben wrapped his hand around the back of her head and hungrily crashed his lips back to hers. His tongue pushed past her lips and he tasted like blood, and flames ripped through her veins as his lips continued to ravage hers. At some point he'd put her down, but all that did was make her arch herself into him, practically welding herself to his broad, naked chest. His other hand roamed down to the small of her back and pulled her almost off the ground, and she couldn't resist the moan that escaped her when he did.

Time froze, and  _fuck_  if his kiss wasn't everything she'd ever hoped it would be.

Forget Snoke, forget  _Kylo Ren,_  forget the audience of miserable, awful little people - in that moment, Ben and Rey were the only two who existed.

If their first kiss burned her alive, this one would raise her from the ashes.

She let out a soft whine as he bit down on her lip and pulled at it gently, just before letting go, and pulling away from the kiss.

Ben lowered her back down gently, until she stood in front of him, flat on her feet, and he rested his forehead against hers as he caught his breath.

He no longer jittered. He no longer shook with repressed anxiety. His breaths on her face were a cool breeze after a night of fireworks, and yet, that didn't stop her from wanting more.

"So," he asked, in a low, husky voice, "If I'm a monster, what does that make you?"

It was a pity that he'd forgotten this was still a fight. Rey almost felt bad about it.

She leaned back and smiled sweetly up as him when she simply replied, "The hero."

In that moment, she remembered two pieces of advice

One from her master.

_The best way to win a fight is to never throw a punch._

The other, from a girl she'd never quite gotten along with, but who'd taught her too much to forget.

_When things get tough-_

Rey's grin turned vicious as she moved her arms from holding his neck to the top of his shoulders.

- _just kick 'em in the balls._

Ben realized something was wrong just a little too late.

With a grunt of effort, as she leveraged her hands on his shoulders, Rey jumped off the matting of the ring once more, and landed a singularly powerful continentally-driven knee-strike  _up_.

The reaction was immediate. Ben's face twisted in sudden and unexpected shock, and for a second Rey worried she'd missed.

And then, he let out a soft keening sound and dropped to his knees, and then the floor, clutching the area where she'd hit him. She could see his eyes close and even tears of pain begin to leak from his eyes as he gasped and rocked, and looked up at her. The question was on his lips even if he didn't have the breath to ask it.

"Yeah, the hero. And," she smirked, and raised a finger to the various speakers surrounding them, "the winner."

The song had ended minutes earlier, and Rey was standing, still in the ring, with him at her feet.

Ben grit his teeth and seemed to shudder in a short bursts, whether with pain or laughter, she didn't know. There was an agonized smile on his face, and that really said all it needed to describe Ben.

Rey tsked teasingly. "Letting yourself get distracted during a fight?  _God_ Ben, I love you, but you really can be an idiot."

And the crowd booed.

* * *

Rey didn't get much time to bask in the glory of her victory before various attendants, each one tall and bald, came out from the side of the ring Rey had entered through and ushered them out, out, out the other side. The men were long iridescent red robes, and they each looked like they belonged as extras on the background of an action movie, with squashed, smashed faces and noses that had definitely been broken multiple times.

She realized then that Snoke probably wasn't very happy with their performance in the cage. That thought probably should have worried her a lot more than it did, but it just made her inordinately pleased.

Ben didn't so much as stand up and walk away as he did climb and lurch. He was still hunched over when they made it into the hall, though with each step, he seemed to stand a little taller, even if he walked like overweight duck trying not to let his legs touch.

The door to the locker room opened with another mechanical hiss, and Rey saw Ben's personal locker room for the second time in two weeks.

Ben was laughing to himself about something, some unspoken joke, but at least he was laughing and talking. Without further ado she brought one of his arms over her shoulder and she started helping him to his cot. He laid on the end, and sprawled back, some figment of his mind seeming to beget more laughter from his prone form.

Finally, he sat up. It seemed like there were still little twitches of pain here and there, but he seemed far better off than he'd been the last time she'd been there.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Ben finally spoke up. "So uh, that…" he paused, working his lips together, then gave her a hint of a smile, "... _technique._ "

She stood in front of him, looking down at his face as he looked up. He was the one covered in so many bruises he could look like a checkerboard. She was the one who'd just won a fight against Ben Solo.

Rey blushed to her roots, and deflected. "Oh, like you're one to talk," she said, hopefully flippantly enough to fool him.

She remembered how he was shirtless, and felt another thermonuclear explosion of heat begin to build up in her face.

He smirked at her reaction, but ignored her comment. "Please tell me you don't normally do that during sparring. I'm sure you'd have a high rate of success, but I can't imagine Luke would appreciate you propositioning your dojang-mates or interrupting sparring matches to kiss them."

She put a hand to her face, suddenly unable to hide the crimson that threatened to overtake her. Her response was a low and mumbling sound that didn't mean anything other than the sheer mortification.

His cheeks turned a delightful pink, and, after  _licking his lips,_ he mumbled, "Especially with that much tongue."

" _No,_ " Rey gasped. " _God_  no."

"That's probably for the best," he chuckled, then murmured, "I can't say it didn't work, though." He sighed, and then laughed the laugh of a lighter man before shaking his head. "Seriously though, what even possessed you to do something like that?"

Might as well throw the culprits under the bus if he intended on pursuing this. "Phasma and Hux thought it would be the easiest way to win."

Ben's surprised chuckle turned into a hacking cough as his most recent injury reasserted itself. "Phasma and- wait you brought  _Hux_  here?"

"Finn and Poe weren't crazy about the idea," Rey continued, deciding to walk around for a bit so her blush could lower, "but the other two were very convincing."

Not that part of her hadn't jumped at the chance to finally get to tell Ben everything. Phasma and Hux's idea had prodded a very patient dragon that had been itching at the chance to finally let her true thoughts known.

Ben groaned. "I  _knew_  you never would have said that stuff. That was...surprising.  _Very_  surprising."

"Oh, they didn't tell me what to say," Rey explained, picking up a foam roller he'd kept in the corner and not-so subtly inspecting it, "they just told me to flirt with you so you'd be distracted."

Ben slowly started turning a darker shade of red, and pulled a hand through his hair, mussing it even further. "Uhh, that was  _flirting?_  Who the fuck taught you how to flirt?" He huffed, and then paused, thinking about it. "Huh. So. All the things you said?...and the, uh...kiss _?_ "

A curl and flicker of ember tightened in her core at the memory. Rey dropped the foam roller and faced him, hands on her hips.

"You kissed me back. And don't pretend like you wouldn't have kissed me at the diner if I hadn't stopped you." She looked away, unable to control the mounting blush, but kept glancing at him through the corner of her eyes. She bit her lip when she noticed how flustered he was. "But, yeah, that was all my idea."

His eyes flashed to hers, and he hesitated for a moment before asking, "Really?"

"Yeah."

Ben cleared his throat. "So...truce?"

"Are you gonna hold up your end of the deal? After all, I  _did_  win."

He huffed. "That doesn't count."

"Oh, yes it does," Rey grinned. "I won that fight fair and square."

"Believe me,  _fair_  had nothing to do with how you won. That was the furthest thing from fair." It seemed his ego was more injured than he was, with how galvanized he was acting. "Also, kicking me? That fucking hurt, Rey. Do you have any idea how much that hurts?"

She smirked. "So you admit that I won?"

Ben rolled his eyes. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"Never," she said, shaking her head quickly, "You're leaving this place, one way or another."

He was silent as he took that in. He took time to answer, during which Rey sent quick furtive glances at all the exposed surface in the room. If Snoke had bugged the room, she couldn't tell. She didn't doubt that he probably had a way of doing so, but she wasn't going to let herself get caught up in the what-ifs and could-haves.

"I don't think I should leave, Rey," Ben said, and she could hear the tortuous sobriety in his voice. "I- I meant what I said back there. People like me," he swallowed thickly, "people like me belong in places like this."

She went over, and crouched down in front of him. Ben had his elbows resting on his knees and his hands were in a impregnable interlocking grip with each other. They shook with strain as he seemed to look down at the ground, hair hanging from his head like a willow tree.

His eyes were wide. Wide and fearful once more.

She felt a swell of empathy for him, and a searing inferno of bottomless and abyss-like hate for the man who'd done this to him. Snoke, with all his words and his training.

The hate faltered, as she remembered her previous realization from before she'd stepped into the cage.

She laid a hand on top of his conjoined ones. "You're wrong," she said, voice interminably soft.

He flinched, and she could see the anguish in his express, naked and raw and exposed to probably the one person he'd never wanted to show this side of him to. "You don't know what you're talking about," he mumbled, closing his eyes and turning away.

He tried to pull his hands away. She didn't let him. Not this time.

Her request was beseeching in its intensity. "You once helped save me from my monster. Please...let me help save you from yours."

She didn't just mean Plutt and Snoke. Those were physical creatures. Monsters of flesh and bone. She knew what kind of horrors always awaited a scarred and lonely person at night, when the world outside was so loud and so quiet at the same time. Snoke and everything else in this place didn't help, but she could understand why he clung to it so. In the pit you didn't have to think. In the pit, there was just the demand of battle and the time-dilating properties of adrenaline and battlelust. It was easy to lose yourself in it instead of confronting the open door of dark dreams and loneliness.

Ben opened his eyes, and there was a wonder so pure and good in his eyes she teared up.

"I don't know if I can," he breathed, words forming without moving his lips, "This place Rey...my master he- he gave me a home."

"Then why," she asked, bringing her other hand up to trace the scar on his face, "do you look so afraid?"

Ben seemed to croon and lean into her touch, and she wished for power then. Power to destroy these walls, to bury Snoke and his elegant gilded throne, all in one blow. It was not fair, she thought, that Ben had stayed under that man's thumb for so long. She didn't know the full extent of their relationship, nor did she think she wanted to, but Ben was cut in a way that was just  _not_   _good_  and she wanted to kiss his soul and send it all the pain away.

"I'm sorry," Rey found herself saying, rubbing her thumb along the uninjured part of his cheek. She accidentally smeared some of his blood along his skin , but he didn't seem to mind, instead leaning in to her hand like a cynical man who just learned what hope felt like. "I'm so sorry, Ben. For everything. I- we should have seen it. What he was doing to you. What  _we_  were doing to you."

His hands stopped shaking. They parted and, with a soft swift movement, they cupped her face.

"You just," She gasped and felt her throat close at the onslaught, "you kept asking for help and we pushed you away."

Ben's smile was a small kind of sad - the kind that had given up once and couldn't remember what joy was. "I made my choices, too."

"I'm not-" She brought her hand down from his face and wiped the tears that had been threatening to leak all night, "I'm not saying you didn't. I know you did, it's just something Snoke said made me realize a lot of things."

And just knowing that Snoke was the reason Rey found out soured the revelation even further. How did a man like that see what everyone around Ben had missed? It was too cruel to put words to.

Ben's expression softened, and he whispered, "Did you mean what you said?"

"What?" she hiccuped, looking up at him.

"You- you really still love me? After everything I've said? After everything I've done?"

Her eyes searched his face for any hint of his thoughts and found none. None beyond a simple, pure, and maybe even unconscionable ray of hope.

"Ben," she said, "I won't lie - you've done some terrible things, and maybe I shouldn't but..." Rey swallowed hard, and whispered, "I'll always love you. No matter what. I'll love you 'til the stars burn out."

"What did I do to deserve that?" he breathed.

"I told you," she said insistently, if not loudly, " _deserve_  has nothing to do with it. Who I love is my choice, and I chose you a long time ago."

Ben let out a long breath and he brought her close, resting his head on her shoulder. She heard him mumble, in her ear, "Saving grace it is, then."

"What?" she asked curiously.

He pulled let her go, and pulled away, shaking his head as if he couldn't believe it. He huffed, "Nothing, I just...I didn't expect this."

Rey frowned. "You didn't expect me to come back for you?"

"Well, that, and...I didn't think you'd still-" he paused, and breathed out the words as if he still couldn't believe them, " _love_  me. I didn't think you'd still want me, once you saw what I'd been doing here."

More of that honest and stark truth. The glaring light of their fight in the ring still seemed to be working its miracle. She wondered why, then, his words sent pinpricks of acid through her chest.

"Oh," she said softly, "What you've done...there are going to be problems because of it but, Ben, you have a chance right now to choose differently. It's not too late. You can still walk away from this. I'll help you." She paused, and huffed, "You really think I wouldn't still want you? I'd be happy to prove you wrong."

She leaned up and angled her head so she could catch his lips in a tender kiss, different in almost every way from the ones they'd shared in the cage. It was tentative, and soft, a slow exploration, and as she pressed herself further against him, his arms came to wrap around her. In a surprisingly graceful move, he pulled her up to carefully straddle his lap without breaking their kiss, which gradually deepened as Rey felt herself sigh against him.

His lips moved from hers, and he kissed an unhurried path down her neck, using a hand at her lower back to hold her tightly to him. She held his shoulders and sighed contentedly, closing her eyes as he sucked a mark into her neck and then nuzzled against it.

"I love you. I love you so much," he murmured against her. His voice was so quiet Rey almost missed it, but his words caused hope to rise in her chest. She threaded her hands in his hair and gently pulled until he lifted his head and looked into her eyes.

Rey was about to say it back, because  _oh_  those beautiful words needed saying, over and over again, for the rest of their lives - but someone started pounding at the door.

"Hey, whatever you two are up to in there, save it for later! I'm coming in," Phasma shouted.

Before she could even think to ask  _how_  Phasma was going to get through a door locked and unlocked only under Snoke's express permission, Rey was taken aback as suddenly the mechanical lock hissed and gave way. Snoke had just let it open.

Phasma burst in, glanced wildly around them as if looking for any enemies, before she caught sight of the position the two of them had been in. She snorted. "Nice hickey, Rey. Sorry I interrupted."

Rey rolled her eyes and turned back to Ben, whispering, "I love you too," just before kissing him again. He didn't seem to mind, and she could have sworn she felt the corners of his lips twist up into a smile.

Rey heard a herd of footsteps come through the door.

"Oh c'mon guys," Finn groaned, "Still? Haven't we suffered enough?"

Phasma scoffed and said, "You're one to talk. Do I need to remember about that time I picked up you and Dameron when you were drunk?" Then she paused, and added, " _Why_  does everyone seem to make out around me? Why are you not all more scared of me?"

"I'm scared of you," Hux admitted, a bit of a slur to his voice. "That good enough?"

Rey pulled away from the kiss and grinned at their friends as she heard Phasma reply in a considering tone, "Ah, yes, I guess you'll do. For now."

She felt Ben laugh softly and she took the opportunity to sit down in front of him and lean against his chest, letting herself forget for at least a moment that they still didn't have an escape plan. He rested his chin on her head and just... _held_  her.

And then, he frowned. "Hux, are you...drunk? What? Why?"

"Course I am!" Hux exclaimed. " _Fuck._  I-I came all this way and -  _fuck_  - did you two fight? Are you  _stupid?"_

He pronounced the word like weird pronunciation between  _tepid_  and  _upped_  and punctuated each F-bomb with a finger jab in their direction. Rey blinked as she took the sight of him in. Hux still wore his overwhelmingly stylish raincoat, but now it was loose and she could see large, heavy bottles hanging in his oversized pockets lining the inside.

"Did you just buy out their entire stock?" Rey muttered, a little impressed despite the ridiculous sight and the overhanging cloud of  _what-now._

"No!" Hux said. He gestured demeaningly, around the room. "I spent all the money. Couldn't."

"He did bum this pretty sweet lighter off a guy though," Poe chipped in, holding up a small black rectangle that shined, "Either that or he stole it. Wasn't paying attention."

Rey stared at her friends and tried to come up with some reasonable response to the whole situation. Their immediate future was still an uncertain and formless shape of endless possibilities, though most of them didn't look good for her and her friends.

She'd told Snoke off during the fight, and not only that - she and Ben had made a circus of the whole affair. The crowd had just started expressing their displeasure with her victory when they'd been kicked into the locker room, and she couldn't imagine the kind of damage the whole thing had done to his reputation.

"I  _cannot_  believe you got drunk at an illegal fight club," Phasma said, looking down her nose at her fiance. Rey got the impression she was less than impressed. "You realize they've probably stolen your credit card info right?"

Hux chuckled. "Let them. S'not like they're getting much from me. I'm flat broke now! Haha!"

Ben's question was murmured right into her ear, sending shivers down her spine. "What's he talking about?"

"He paid our entry fee," she whispered back, and had to tell herself  _not now_  when his arms, so large and powerful, seemed to tighten and hold her closer as she said it.

"Aww, so cute," Poe smiled, seeing them, "but come on, we didn't come here for cuddling." He addressed Ben and said, "We're here to rescue you."

"He's right Rey," Ben said, a little reluctantly, "You need to get out of here. Look, whatever you guys have planned to get out, you should do it while I go talk to-"

"I mean you too, dumbass." Poe rolled his eyes, walking forward and socking Ben in the shoulder. Not hard. Just playful. Like friends did.

Ben looked between each of them, and she could feel the nervous grip he had on her begin to tingle. He didn't know what to do. His voice was lost and confused when he asked, "What?"

"God, you're thick. What, did getting your nuts slammed into oblivion ruin your brain too?" Poe sighed and angrily ruffled his own hair, "Actually, don't answer that. Get up. This place is a hellhole, and you might be a bit of an asshole, and you definitely need more than one asskicking for all the crap you've pulled but...you don't belong here."

"You're here for me?" Ben asked, a sailor braving strange and unfamiliar waters, "I- I thought you just came to back Rey up."

Each of their friends seemed to take their time looking at each other before collectively snorting in unison. Even Hux did, and his was a full body reaction that sloshed the liquid in the various containers in his coat.

"You're kidding, right?" Phasma asked dryly. "Look, Benji, she's cute as hell but we're here for you, you idiot."

Hux rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah, Ben, M'not leaving my best man at a fucking fi-" he hiccuped, "er, fight club. "

She watched Ben's eyes go wide as he whispered, "Best man?"

"Who else?" Hux shrugged. "You're my best friend. The reason I met Phas."

Rey watched curiously as Ben turned red and looked away. "Uh, yeah, technically, I guess."

"Maybe don't mention that at the wedding," Phasma snorted.

Hux looked between them, and narrowed his eyes. "No?"

"You probably shouldn't mention that I was in your roommate's bed the first time you met me," Phasma said dryly.

Rey blinked, partially wondering when the appropriate time to climb off Ben's lap had been, and noticed Hux frown, then concentrate carefully on the sentence he managed to get out with an impressive level of coherence. "What do you two think happened?"

Ben shrugged and replied awkwardly, "I mean...nothing I remember, but we were  _really_  drunk."

All of a sudden Hux started cackling. Cackling and howling and gibbering which way and that at some apparently very funny joke. "You idiots! You want to know what happened? You morons were trying to spar!"

A nervous giggle escaped her then. The ludicrousness of the situation and story was finally starting to get to her.

"You even decided to have a drunk poomse competition! You  _both_  lost, by the way."

Phasma bit at her lip as she asked, "You mean...we didn't?"

"Definitely  _not_ ," Hux choked.

"Oh thank God," Phasma sighed, and in a normal situation Rey would have needled her for it, but right then it was all she could do not to break down into a nervous fit of titters and snickers. "No offense Benji, but you're like my brother."

Rey felt more than saw Ben swallow the sudden lump in his throat. "I am?" He asked, voice hoarse.

Phasma glanced over at him, ready with another stinging remark to fire off, but she seemed to think better of at as something else crossed her mind. She smirked. "Oh, we're hugging. It's going to happen and I've warned you in advance so I better not hear any bitching."

"Why don't you all hate me?" Ben whispered, and Rey's heart nearly broke at that question, asked so timidly, as if he was terrified to hear the answer he expected.

Poe, probably the guy who had the most reason to dislike Ben, sighed and shook his head. "Dude, look, I'm not gonna lie to you. You fucked up. Shit man, you fucked  _me_  up. But you're still Ben."

Ben blinked and tried to make some noise, but all that came out was a fragile grieving whimper.

Finn, who'd kept silent this entire time, stepped forward. "Look, Ben, uh...look." He composed himself before continuing. "I might not like you as much as these guys but, dude, you've got people who care."

Ben focused on Finn's face and she could feel the cosmically powerful heartbeat in his chest against her back. She could feel his tremble, as good at suppressing it as he was, she could tell. Confronted with kindness, and all he could do was flounder in place. She felt him shift his head to look at Poe, and she just knew he was focusing on the arm now in a cast.

"I did that," he said, grievously.

"Dude, I don't know everything that's been going on here, but," Finn pointed out the door, "that? That out there? That's messed up. Seriously messed up. But these guys in here? They're pretty crazy but, honestly? They're kinda' great too."

"Love you too Finn."

"Except Phasma," Finn continued without missing a beat, "She's just crazy."

"That's rich coming from you!" the woman laughed, chuffing Finn upside the head.

"The point is, man," Finn said, his voice the most serious Rey had ever heard, "It's alright to have friends. So we're not going to leave after all that."

Silence reigned for a few seconds before Ben shrugged helplessly. "Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you hate me?"

"We don't," Phasma said quietly. "Never have, never will. Especially not if you help us get out of here." She took a deep breath and said, "Ben, we all just risked our necks coming in here to help you leave - you really think we'd do that if we didn't all love you?"

"You guys-" Ben started, but whatever he was going to say got lost along the way, and Rey smiled gratefully at each of her friends.

"Come here, you big lug," Phasma said, arms outstretched. "You fucking made me cry, you absolute fucker. Come here and hug me, stupid idiot."

"She gets like this a lot," Hux pitched in, explaining, "Usually the more she calls you names, the more she likes you. And Ben, believe me, she really likes you."

Slowly, tentatively, Ben's arms loosened around his protective and defensive embrace around Rey. Rey stood carefully, not wanting to spook him any more than he'd been all night, and then held out her hand. He grabbed hers like a lifeline and stood as well, wincing a little as his various injuries protested the action.

As soon as they were both standing, Rey was yanked into a brutal, fierce embrace alongside Phasma and Ben. She felt them both enclose her and each other in their arms, and though neither of them said anything she could tell the waves of rippling emotion between them was finally on the road to healing.

Suddenly another person joined in. Craning her head under their respective arms (because dammit these people were tall), Rey say a familiar flash of red hair opposite her in the hug.

"I love you guys," Hux sighed, forgoing all vestiges of his usual persona as he tried to become one with the mass of human warmth they all found themselves in. "I really love tequila, too."

"Holy shit," Poe said, off to the corner, sounding like he was having the time of his life, "He really is  _Hugs_. This is great. I love drunk Hux."

"You are a terrible influence and I fear for anyone left in your care ever again." Finn said flatly. "I can't believe we trusted you with Hux, and you let him get trashed."

"Shut up and join the love, Finn!" Poe shouted, gleefully running in and practically colliding with their hug at supersonic speed.

Rey heard Finn grumble something before a shift in the pressure of arms around her told her he too, had joined the fold.

After minutes of just standing like that, filled with too many things that needed to be said and several variations of the phrase "I love you guys", they parted. Ben immediately sought her side out again. He didn't reach for her hand or anything, but he did hover over her closely and she was again reminded that he was shirtless, that he looked good shirtless, and  _fuck_  if he didn't feel good shirtless too.

Ben seemed to rumble with satisfaction as if he could read the tread of her thoughts, but when he spoke it was addressing the group as a whole. "So, whose idea was it for Rey to kick me in the balls? Because  _holy shit_  that sucked."

"I can make it up to you," Rey said, turning and winking up at him. She was incredibly amused as a blush reappeared his face.

Phasma cleared her throat, "First of all,  _gross_ , please do that when I'm not around. Second," she grinned, "Rey did that all on her own. Good luck with  _that_  relationship, Benji. I can't wait to see if you survive it."

Whatever Ben was going to say in response to that Rey didn't know, because it was then that the intercom in the room came to life.

"Outside. Now," said the voice, before it cut out again.

"Oh right," Phasma winced, "That's still a problem."

"Snoke sent us down here," Finn said seriously, meeting Rey's eyes. "We...uh...we kinda' fucked with his soundbooth and I guess he found out."

"I noticed that, thanks," Rey said dryly, "I think I could've guessed that Bonnie Tyler isn't a favorite of his."

"He's kinda' pissed," Poe pointed out.

"Oh gee," Finn said, "You think?"

"Maybe it's 'cause you tased that guy," Phasma commented.

"He was asking who we were!" Finn yelled, somewhat defensively, "I panicked, okay?!"

 _That_  got Rey's attention. "Wait, you  _tased_ someone?!"

Phasma shrugged, "We wanted to change the music. The guy wanted to know why."

"You are way too calm for a situation like this!" Finn seemed to shriek.

Hux crouched down and put his hands on his ears. "We're so fucked," he moaned, "Oh god. What the fuck am I doing here with you people?"

Poe patted his shoulder consolingly. "Buck up, buddy, we still got work left to do."

Hux perked up at that. "Hey, you still got that lighter?" he asked, and then wobbled in place in his crouch.

Poe shot the rest of them a weird look. He fished the tiny rectangle out of his pocket where he'd put it earlier. "Uh...yeah, here you go I guess."

Hux grabbed at it like it was the Holy Grail. "This!" he whispered a bit too devoutly for a man-made item, "This'll save our asses!"

All five in the room stared at the man before subsequently dismissing him. "Right, so, ignoring my drunk and crazy fiance," Phasma began, as cutthroat as ever, "how are we getting out of here?"

The mechanical lock in the door hissed open once more. Rey blinked. There was none of the usual din or horrendous roar of sound that threatened to swallow humans whole.

Ben raised an eyebrow. "You guys don't have a plan?"

Poe jabbed a thumb over at Rey. "Our plan was to have her flirt with you. We're still kinda working on part B of that."

The intercom crackled to life once more. " _Get into the cage,_ " the voice on the line hissed malevolently, " _or I'll bring you out here myself_."

Ben tensed and seemed to fight the instinctive urge to crouch down and raise his arms for protection. He still did it, but it was strained, a violent concourse of reflex versus desire.

"...we should go," he said. There was a submissive air to him that Rey could tell he was doing his damndest not to give in to. "I'll see if I can talk to him."

They each looked at each other, and nodding, started filing out of the door, into the ring.

Ben was last, and before she stepped out of the room, Rey put a hand on the back of his neck, and brought him in close for a tender, fleeting kiss that sent quakes throughout her very being.

* * *

Ben stepped out of his quarters, trailing after the others, and watched them go on ahead.

He plodded along more carefully. The others probably expected something to happen - they weren't stupid. Maybe they'd noticed that his master didn't care much for guns, and so they thought they'd be safer, but Ben had learned the hard way that you didn't need to be armed to hurt a person. To carefully and methodically destroy them.

Ben wasn't going to let his master do that. He'd beg with his life if he had to. The man was nothing if not ruthlessly practical and always looking for some advantage to screw a person out of at some point.

He was a terrifying man. A grandmaster in all the wrong ways. Ben didn't doubt for a moment that they were at the risk and reward of his mercy.

Ben was ready to bargain with that monster though, if it meant letting them, those wonderful, stupid, brave and foolish people he called friends, go.

They walked down the hallway into the ring, and Ben was struck by how quiet the building was. Some of the guests had left, no doubt infuriated by the night's turn of events, but a good number were still in the stands, hidden from sight by the depth of the pit and the cage above them.

Several of the  _The Guard_  as the group of fulltimers at the  _First Order_  called themselves stood around them in a ring. Six in all, one in each corner. Ben had fought and beaten every one of them. One on one they were good, but he knew their tells. Two on one they made him work desperately for it. He'd done a three on one match with some of them once, and he'd nearly shattered his elbows doing so.

Six was impossible.

" _Line up,"_ his master ordered through the speaker system. It was a facsimile of a command Ben had learned over a decade earlier.

Ben looked at each of his friends, urging them to follow his lead. They seemed nervous, all the bravado and flirtation with danger gone, but he could see the unwavering, resolute strength he wished he himself had.

They lined up in a straight band, facing the southmost side of the warehouse. Ben noticed the cold empty gaze of Peavey in front of them. He wore nothing except his fighter's shorts, and was sporting a split lip that Ben had dished out two nights ago.

Ben looked up, and there, at last, was his master.

He stood above them all in a shrouded surveyor's box converted specifically for his needs. Normally, the box was covered in a black screen that protected the rest of the warehouse from his master's presence. It still received the feed of the fights, but rarely did his master ever deign to look down at the world of mortals without the benefit of an electronic screen.

He hung above them like a vulture, or maybe a hawk. In any case, Ben recognized a predator, having been trained extensively on how to become one by the man himself. Predators that moved around, pacing, were either being patient or hunting.

Or, the coldly reasoning part of him noted, they were playing with their food.

"You almost had me there, girl," his master said, sitting down on his plush and immense chair, that was visible even from that height. "I almost fell for your ploy. Skywalker isn't here, is he?"

Ben turned to Rey questioningly, but she shook her head gently at him.

"Thought not," his master sighed, sounding disappointed. "Your master plan was to- what? Come and humiliate me in front of my peers?"

Ben swallowed. His master saw no one as his peer. That word alone told Ben there were definitely people still in the audience. People his master wanted around to see what happened.

"And you, Master Phasma," his master said, savoring his words like a troll before a meal, "After all the kindness I showed you? After all the effort I put in to your career? You come in and pollute my demesne with that  _trash!"_

Ben saw Phasma flinch, and wondered what the story was there. He'd heard tell that she hadn't quit and was actually up for a 'promotion' but clearly there was more there than he'd heard.

" _Kylo Ren!_ Step forward."

Ben blinked, and prepared himself for the unwilling, instinctive subjugation his own body put him through whenever his master called his name.

_Not his name though…_

Ben banished that thought away and swallowed.

" _I said,_ " his master bit out, the sound of an icepick chipping at a human skull, "Kylo Ren! Step forward!"

Ben inhaled, and exhaled, and then did so.

"Come closer," said the brutally mechanical and electronic filter of his master's voice.

Ben hesitated.

"Will I have to repeat myself a third time tonight?" his master asked silkily - it sent shivers down Ben's spine and reminded him of the all too often remedial trainings he'd been adopting in recent months.

Some madness was possessing Ben though. Something was stopping him from moving forward.

"Kneel boy!" his master's voice exploded in his ear, such command and fury Ben nearly gave in then, and  _god_ did he want to, but at the same time-

_That's not my name._

"Kylo Ren!" his mas- no,  _Snoke -_  bellowed and Ben felt the order reach down into his soul and squeeze with a grip that would last eternally, "You will kneel before your master!"

Ben bowed his head, and for a moment he thought he could hear an old man's voice. A voice that had tucked him in, and patted him on the head proudly, and broken his heart, say one thing.

_That's not your name, kid. You're Ben Solo. You're my boy._

"Boy!" Snoke roared. "I will-"

"...not my name."

"What?" Ben looked up and saw the worst human being he'd ever had the displeasure of encountering stand from his lofty throne of avarice and greed. Snoke had turned an ugly deforming shade of puce, a reflection of the evil inside. "What did you say to me,  _Kylo Ren?!_ "

"I said." He closed his eyes. Inhale. Exhale. "That's not my name!"

Shock seemed to permeate the warehouse.

"That is not my name!" Ben shouted, to the world, to Rey, and above all to himself. He shouted it with a jubilance he hadn't felt in years and he wanted to whoop for joy. "And you are not my master!"

"That. Is. Enough!" Snoke boomed, the volume on the mic turned up to almost painful levels. Ben saw his friends -  _His. Friends -_  flinch and cover their ears. "You have caused me enough problems tonight Kylo and I-"

" _No!_ " Ben screamed, "That's not my name! I am not your student and I will _not_ be your Chosen One!"

Ben pounded his chest in challenge and flipped the old fucker the bird. "I am the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa - I am and always will be the student of Master Luke Skywalker!"

He turned to Rey, and his friends who'd all seemed to have fallen into a stupor at his lapse in sanity. "My heart is alive and it beats for a living bit of starlight. I have friends and family and they walked into this fucking hell you created just to bring me home!"

"You are alone, boy!" Snoke whispered, a deathly stillness befalling everything around there. "You are and always will be alone!"

"I am not alone, you fucking bastard!" Ben roared, hope and rightness finally taking root in his being after so  _so_  long. "I have people who love me!"

Ben glared up at the man, and let it all out with his next few words.

"I am  _Ben Solo_ , and fuck you for ever thinking you could take that away from me!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Streetfighter bullshit, anger management issues, and chemistry in action.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> Attack: Well, that's the end of Act II. We've been wanting to get to Act III for AGES.
> 
> Onfire: Guys I'm still so wired up form writing that last part. Holy crap, I've been wanting to get to this part for months. Act II is officially finished! The arc is still ongoing but….well, honestly this is what we've imagined for ages.  
>  [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	39. Black Belt, Second Stripe, Part VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We had _so_ much fun with this chapter. Enjoy! Picking up right where we left off.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


Rey and everyone else stood there, stunned as a half-miracle, half-dream played out in front of them.

"Holy shit, Rey," Hux muttered, two spaces down the line they'd formed, "You must be a hell of a kisser. We should have had you try making out with him a long time ago."

She didn't answer, too mesmerised by the sight of Ben throwing off his shackles and loudly (and crudely) renouncing the man he'd refused to so much as speak the untitled name of, let alone badmouth hours earlier. She had no doubt it hurt him to speak those words - the kind of conditioning he'd been put through wasn't so easily overthrown, but it was a beautiful kind of pain...the pain of freedom.

When Ben finished his tirade, Rey had to stop herself from laughing herself giddy, even as she realized the enormity of what Ben had just done.

One didn't just call out a man like Snoke without consequence.

There was a black hole of silence in the warehouse, a vacuum of noise that made the previous times seem like rock concerts in comparison. Rey didn't dare to so much as blink, lest she draw the ire of the creature that was in command of the hell they were in.

Snoke's voice returned on the speakers. His previous incensed tone had vanished, replaced with a vacuous pit of no emotion. "You foolish chil-"

But Ben was no longer paying attention. As soon as Snoke had started speaking, Ben had broken into a mad sprint, heading for one of the men in the corners. The man seemed stunned by this sudden turnabout but had fallen into a fighting stance on instinct as soon as he'd soon Ben approach. Rey forgot to breathe as she saw Ben side-step around the other man's lashing front snap kick at the last second, jump off with his free leg and plant a flying haymaker in his face that immediately dropped the man in the corner like a sack of rocks.

"Get them!" someone shouted. Maybe it was Snoke or one of the other guards. Hell maybe it was even Ben, warning the others into action. Rey didn't have time to analyze just who'd spoken because suddenly the world erupted into chaos.

"Everybody huddle up!" Ben roared, dropping to a crouch to plant a knee-strike into his downed opponents ribs. "Back to back! Don't let them catch you alone!"

Phasma and Poe were already moving, turning in place to each face an advancing fighter from the closest corners behind them. They'd been lined up almost exactly across the middle of the hexagon, like an executioner's gallery, and now they were breaking it up, falling into a protective group, keeping their backs to each other.

Rey looked to the side, to see the shorts-garbed fighter in the corner closest to her on the far end of the line. He had his arms up in a strange high-guard position, exposing his ribs but covering his upper half easily. His fighting stance was unfamiliar to Rey, wider with a more rhythmic march to it than she expected as he advanced on her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the remaining two guards advance on Ben, approaching him from opposite corners of the hexagon. Ben came to his feet quickly, but winced, seeing the pincer approach of his new opponents. He was trapped between them and the wall.

"So we're not even trying for diplomacy here, I see," Poe said, sidestepping in tandem with Rey and Phasma as they fell into a defensive triangle formation around Finn and Hux, who'd huddled up. The fighters approached, each snarling accursed words at them, spittle hitting the pit's floor.

"Let's be honest here," Phasma said, shifting her stance to keep her designated guard in her eyesight, "we all knew this was going to happen."

"I didn't!" Hux cried out from behind them. He held onto Finn like he was a life preserver, "I thought we'd have a plan! This is a  _bad_  plan!"

"Finally!" Finn said, and Rey wondered if he was aware of how disproportionately pleased he was with being right at such a dangerous time, "Someone gets it!"

"Guys!" Rey snapped, seeing the trio of fighters close in on them like a pack of hunting wolves. "Really? Now is  _not_ the time for  _I told you so_ 's."

The fighters were jeering, taunting, and each of them was only a few feet away. Rey watched them coldly, assigning them nicknames in her head. They were all injured in some capacity or another, which she supposed was a good thing. One man (AKA, Mummy) had a wrap of gauze around his entire torso, and he was spitting vitriol and meaningless words incessantly, gauging their reactions; there was one man with a string of bruises all at various stages of healing, all centered around his thighs - Patches seemed to be an appropriate moniker for him. The last one didn't show any visible injuries but his throat sounded hoarse, judging from the scratches in his voice as he spat and grunted, hacking a loogie at them.

Rey didn't flinch, seeing the simple tactic for what it was. The wad of fluid landed beside her, but she didn't stop the disgusted curl of her lips at the crudeness. She decided to call that one Fuckface.

She wasn't going to fall for simple distraction techniques, even as her insides gibbered in atavistic terror of being surrounded by so many people willing her harm. Instead, she, Phasma and Poe pulled back, bringing the formation closer and tighter. Any more and they wouldn't be able to move without hitting each other.

"Stay close," Rey whispered to them, almost as a prayer, "Stay safe."

On her left, still sporting a broken arm he held back in a lame guard, Poe snorted. "Little late for that now."

There was a symphony of voices building in the warehouse. She didn't pay them much attention, too preoccupied with making sure the man in front of her didn't try to pull something while she was distracted. Snoke had cut the voice feed from his private box, and Rey grit her teeth to stop the scream building in her chest. A powerful kihap might have worked against an untrained opponent - startle them long enough for her to maybe get a strike in, but these guys looked like Christmas had come early. Her and her friends were sitting ducks.

Up above, Rey heard the sound of a distant and metallic screech like something out of her worst nightmares. She didn't dare look up to find out what it was.

The fighters stopped their basic ritualistic hooting and seemed to have come to some silent agreement, and began encircling them counterclockwise, like predators circling their prey.

"What are they waiting for?" Finn asked, and Rey imagined she heard the faint sound of a button unclasping.

There came a sudden, but violent shout from Poe's direction, followed by a hiss from one of the men surrounding them. That hiss soon turned into laughter, which the man's compatriots soon joined him in.

"Poe!" Rey shouted, desperate to check if he was ok but not wanting to give the brutish man in front of her an opportunity. "You alright?"

"Oh,  _sure_. Just fucking peachy!" Poe shouted, voice strained, "The cast's real good at blocking hits!"

Rey didn't mean for her eyes to stray, but as she circled around, she saw Ben fighting the two other men in the arena. A lightning-fast jab went for Ben's face, only for him turn his head aside and let it pass by. He lunged in while the man's arm was still extended and took a punishing blow to his side for the movement. He hooked his own arm through at the man's shoulder under the armpit, grabbing his own hand for leverage, locking the man's in an painful brace using his neck. Before the man could do or react any further, Ben pulled down on his opponents arm, right as he lifted his upper body up.

The sickening sound of a dislocated shoulder was loud enough to pierce through the rising storm of voices, shouts, and bets.

And then Ben, still holding his opponent in a clinch, hefted his body against the other man, and spun them in place, just in time for the  _other_  opponent's devastating side kick to come in, landing right on his partner's thigh instead of anywhere on Ben, sending a howl pain up from that end of the arena.

The whole thing took less than five seconds, but it was five seconds that Rey shouldn't have used to look away.

The man now in front of her - stocky, with a blocky jaw, was the one with the bruises on his legs. Patches. His hand shot out, making a grabbing motion, and Rey jerked her body to the side, opting not to go for a block. The grab turned into a sweep of the hand and she reflexively brought her arm up to punch his lax stance to bits before she realized her mistake.

His fingers latched onto her wrist like a leech, and whatever other training differences there may have been between them, she was still lighter and overall, weaker. His hand pulled her down, and she stumbled forward, directly into close quarters with the man.

She spit in his face, hoping to distract him, but the usual automatic reaction didn't come. Instead, the man's leg came in, hooked through the back of hers, and before she knew it she was falling back. She saw, at the edges of her vision, a fist reaching down ready to slam her head against the floor and smash it to paste and-

Which was when Poe came in, with a flying side kick, right in the man's kidney.

Patches was knocked back, suddenly coughing and clutching his side desperately, and Rey suffered no worse than a fall that she instinctively broke the momentum of by slamming her arms against the floor at the last second.

"Behind you!" Rey gasped, seeing the man Poe had turned his back on, Fuckface, charge in looking as gleeful as a hyena.

It was too late to react. Poe was just getting his bearings from the move, hissing and swearing in words too fast to hear as he visibly winced, moving his shoulder and arm. Phasma was too busy dealing with Mummy, engaged in a hellishly fast exchange of blocks and strikes while trying not to lose ground.

Fuckface had just wound up a horrifically strong-looking hammerblow and was halfway to delivering it to the back of Poe's head when-

"NOT MY BOYFRIEND, YOU BASTARD!"

-suddenly the man seized in place and fell backwards. He collapsed to the floor in jerky movements, and an animalistic scream tore from his throat as he convulsed, washing the shock from Rey's mind as she hurried to her feet.

Finn stood over the man, shaking, a baton the size of a school-length ruler extending from his hand, pointing right where the man had been. There was a wild, crazed look in his eyes and he immediately sought out Poe to make sure he was okay.

That was when sound flooded the pit. It boomed from the speakers embedded into the walls, and nearly deafened Rey with the shock of it.

Rey thought nothing of it though, letting the peppy electric guitars and metrically spaced drumbeats fill her ears, opting to go help Phasma. The woman had drifted off from their core group in her fight and was now being thrown backwards against one of the walls after a viciously powerful push kick that slammed her back with a painful sounding smack.

> _Well you're a real tough cookie with a long history,_  
>  _Of breaking little hearts like the one in me._  
>  _That's okay, let's see how you do it,_  
>  _Put up your dukes, let's get down to it._

Snarling, Rey went low and tackled the jackass right as he was pressed in for a stomp kick that would have caved Phasma's chest in. She hit Mummy from behind, only succeeding in throwing him off balance enough to bring his leg down before it could land. His elbow came down and smashed into her upper shoulder, but Rey held steadfast, reaching around for a bear hug at his abdomen that normally wouldn't do anything to a man of his size.

Except, he was already injured and Rey made sure to dig in, squeezing at his ribs, where she guessed his injuries most likely were. The man roared in pain, and spun in place, trying and failing to plant another strike with his elbow. Rey winced, feeling the screaming pain in her arms but she held on since she wasn't sure what else to do.

Thankfully, Phasma came in, a growling she-devil from hell as she grabbed one of the man's flailing arms at the wrist, snatched his elbow and pressed into the crook of it, causing the man's concentration to falter and focus on resisting. His other arm came in and landed a overhand strike, and Rey felt him lumber forward, possibly in an effort to get Phasma up against the wall once more.

"Bitch!" the man swore, frenetic and deranged and still overwhelmingly strong no matter how much Rey struggled to pull him back.

"That's  _Queen Bitch_  to you," Phasma spat back, leaning back and pulling him closer. Her leg rose up and slammed between the man's knees in a quick and dirty mimic of Rey's earlier tactic.

> _Hit me with your best shot!_  
>  _Why don't you hit me with your best shot?_  
>  _Hit me with your best shot!_  
>  _Fire away!_

Mummy grunted, and laughed. He was wearing a cup, Rey realized, and she swore emphatically. He was probably about to say something derisive, but that's when Phasma finally got the man to bend his arm. She moved like a hurricane, cupping his elbow and bringing it up, right as she brought the man's wrist down.

Rey let go and spun out of the way as Phasma continued her trajectory and took the man down using simple body mechanics and physics. He slammed another vicious strike into Phasma's face on the way down, but it was weak and lacked power, and then he was screaming as Phasma pressed the joint lock she had him in to its limit.

There was probably something about fighting two on one that was against the rules in the Taekwondo handbook, or about kicking a man while he was down and Rey decided she'd look it up later, but for now, she didn't care. She jumped on the man, slamming a vicious kick into his side once more, which finally sent him careening straight from screaming into a breathless pitiable gasp that would have been completely pathetic, had he not been trying to break their faces seconds earlier. Whatever resistance he'd been attempting went slack.

Phasma gave Rey an approving nod before she stood to her feet, wincing and grabbing her cheek. She had a cut above her eye and was cringing as she stood to her full height, grabbing at her ribs. "Bastard's good," Phasma breathed, grimacing in between breaths. "Thanks for the assist."

Ah right. Rey had to breathe too. Whatever surge of strength that had possessed her seemed to leave her suddenly, and Rey sucked in a breath as her shoulder began shrieking appalling words of hate and agony at the abuse of her body.

She looked to her friends, and found the one remaining fighter caged in between Poe, Finn, and Hux, as all three of them ducked and dodged every tentative strike from the suddenly defensive man. Fuckfaced laid to the side, unconscious. A disgusting smell was wafting from him.

Patches, tired of the timidity, launched at Hux, who yelped and spun out of the way, his coat flapping behind him. The fighter grabbed onto the coat and pulled Hux back and delivered a knee strike to Hux's thigh, only for a dull thunk sound to emerge from it, faltering the man's expected cry of pain.

Poe's roundhouse came up behind him and slammed into the side of Patches' head. The man jerked sideways and, proving he wasn't just some meathead, used the movement to tumble forward and away from the group, coming up in a crouching stance that would have had him ready to receive any attack.

Any attack, except, maybe, for Hux's outraged uppercut to his jaw. Patches' chin jerked upwards, and it looked like something flew off him just as Hux immediately backed away, clutching his hand, and screaming, "Fuck, that  _hurts_!"

The guard recovered quickly - too quickly, and lunged for Hux. He was in mid-air when Finn's stun baton came in, finding purchase in the man's outstretched arm. Thousands of volts fed into the man, and just like Fuckface before him, he seized up. He landed on the ground with an ugly sounding thump and crack that immediately told Rey he'd broken his nose.

The man groaned listlessly, twitching and jerking as he apparently tried to stand.

Finn looked uncertain of whether or not to keep attacking, but he didn't have to, because that was when Poe came in and delivered a boot-covered shin kick that Rey knew for a fact was strong enough to shatter stone. The kick met Patches' knee, and he went down, unable to support himself on a suddenly blown-out knee joint.

"Goddamn," Phasma said, admiring their handiwork, "Did we just get outshined by two civvies and a cripple?"

"Bite me, Phasma," Poe said as he walked over to look at Finn. He was pale and breathing in uneven wheezy gasps, and Rey remembered very suddenly that he'd been explicitly told not to move around too much for a few weeks for fear of shifting the broken bones in his arm. Judging by his expression, that had either already happened or he was a hell of an actor.

"Nuh-uh," Phasma said, winking - the psychotic bitch was  _winking_  - and throwing an arm over her fiance's shoulder, "I only bite  _this_  guy."

"Fucking shit on a stick," Hux hissed, grasping at his hand. Rey could see an ugly purplish color forming along his two front knuckles. "Why does anyone  _do_  this crap? It fucking hurts! Fucking masochists, all of you."

Whatever Rey was going to say was cut off by the impossibly loud animalistic roar coming from the other side of the ring. Startled, Rey immediately cut into a run that had her shoulders shrieking with lances of pain down her arms.

Ben was still over in the corner, somehow pressed backwards against a wall, keeping his arms up in a guard as he blocked as many blows as he could. She could see the men attempt to grab him for some sort of takedown technique, but Ben kept his back firmly against the wall and did not bend, falling into a desperate defensive ploy that wouldn't last much longer.

She wasn't even aware of her screaming as she sprinted across the ring. "Hands  _off_ my boyfriend!"

Rey passed the man Ben had downed earlier and interrupted the pounding exchange with a low front-snap kick that immediately kicked the man on the right's leg out from under him, causing him to stumble backwards and eat a vindictively delicious elbow strike from Ben as he spun out of the way of the other fighter's attacks. The man's arm hung limply at his side, and for a moment Rey couldn't help but be impressed with his sheer tenacity.

His head snapped to the side from Ben's strike, but the asshole recovered quickly, and went in for another punch. Ben slapped his punch aside contemptuously, and slid away from the second man's furious strikes, placing the first man between them. Ben moved outside the range of another punch, before he zoomed in and delivered a quick one-two combo to the man's liver, grabbed the man's head, and brought it down for a powerful knee-strike that sent Rey's teeth chattering in sympathy.

The man dropped, and Rey practically let out a sigh of relief before the last fighter charged at her with his arms raised in a strange high-guard. She yelped, and, acting on instinct, turned on her front foot, bringing her foot up in a spinning back kick like she'd seen Ben do to Poe two weeks earlier. Her aim wasn't anywhere near as good as Ben's, and rather than landing on the man's abdomen, she felt her foot push off something soft.

It didn't matter, he fell to his knees, clutching his gut and glaring hatefully up at her.

"Is that the only move you know?" Ben asked, as he came in and dispatched the man with a simple but dangerously powerful overhand strike to the temple. "Seriously, that's the second time tonight." He grinned and added, "That's kinda evil, y'know."

Despite the situation Rey couldn't help but blush as she realized where she'd kicked the guy. "It wasn't on purpose!" she said, rapidly backing away from the unconscious men.

Ben shook his head and smiled. His hair was a mess and his chest was covered with old injuries, but he stood over her like a protective guardian cut of marble and chiseled with love, and for some reason that had too much to do with hormones and not enough to do with sense, her heart went  _ka-thunk_.

"So...boyfriend?" he asked, chuckling lightly. He looked so much like the man she'd fallen in love with, she nearly jumped him right there.

She paused, and because her priorities were clearly in order, suddenly felt incredibly shy and couldn't meet his eyes. "Oh. Uh, I kinda assumed, but-"

Ben interrupted by grabbing her chin and angling it upwards until she met his stare. Somehow she kept forgetting how much  _taller_  he was than her. "No, it's good," he said, smiling down at her. "Amazing, actually." Her stomach did somersaults and vaulted through the air and wow  _what the fuck,_  libido - "I just wasn't sure I heard correctly."

"Oi! Lovebirds!" Poe interrupted just before Ben could bent down and kiss her, "If you're done fight-flirting we still need to get the hell out of here!"

"That man," Rey breathed out, "I'm going to murder him when we get out of here."

Ben smirked. "Since when were you the violent one?"

She rolled her eyes at him, and they approached their friends, who'd all huddled up once again, warily eyeing the unconscious and/or insensate men. The foul smell in the air had spread, magnified by the presence of a second man who'd been tased and then knocked out. The only one moving amongst their opponents was Mummy over in the corner, and that was only for the heavy shuddering breaths he kept taking as he'd pushed himself to lean against the wall. He was eyeing them and mumbling something hateful but too low to make out.

> _Hit me with your best shot!_  
>  _Why don't you hit me with your best shot?_  
>  _Hit me with your best shot!_  
>  _Fire away!_

That's when Rey finally made sense of the nonsense happening in her ears. She turned to the only person culpable. "Really, Phasma?" she asked, crossing her arms even as a manic grin threatened to break free, " _Really?_  Pat Benatar?"

Phasma's outfit, a simple grey T-shirt, was soaked through with sweat, when she shrugged. "What? I left a playlist going. S'not my fault they didn't think to check for scheduled songs."

"You planned this?!" Finn said, aghast. "You know the point is  _not_  to get hit, right?"

"Phas, tell me you didn't plan mood music to have on while we're fighting for our lives," Ben said dryly. "Just...tell me you didn't."

Phasma's response was a gleeful and insane cackle. "Shut up and let it happen, Benji."

He groaned. "Stop calling me that!"

"Make me."

"Oh my god!" Finn said, cutting in, "You two are worse than siblings."

Despite the very real possibility of none of them leaving the pit alive, Rey couldn't help but snort and say, "I can't believe I used to think you two were a thing."

Phasma retched. "Oh  _god_  no. Gross. Trust me, cupcake, he's all yours. I like my men with fewer issues."

Before anyone could even think to point out the irony in her words, Hux decided to break out into giggles, interspersed with quiet and humdrum notations of how much his hand hurt.

Ben looked at Hux and then back at Poe. "I'm blaming you for this."

"Hey!" Poe said indignantly, "It's not my fault we're caught up in some crazy streetfighter bullshit."

"Not that," Ben waved dismissively as if they weren't talking about extreme bodily harm and potential death, "I'm talking about Hux. Just look at the poor guy!"

Hux was caressing one of the various bottles he'd had in his pocket, apparently trying to nurse himself back to health by literally nursing the alcoholic concoction. All five of them stared at the redhead and Rey wondered if Hux would remember any of the night's events once he'd sobered up. Dear  _Lord_ , the man was trashed.

Abruptly, the music cut out as Snoke's voice blared through the speakers one more time. "Impressive work," the man said, his voice a controlled and malevolent song. "I will have to remember employ more group events when I put this night behind me."

None of them said anything. Snoke's surveyor's box had shrouded itself once more and only the lights reflected off and through the crimson drapes decorating the air above them like banners of war. There seemed to be a stampede going on in the audience though, and Rey imagined she could hear them holler and yell at others to hurry up.

"You've done me a lot of damage tonight, boy," Snoke continued, and for a second he almost sounded mournful, like some deviant gleeful child who'd broken a favorite toy, "It is only fair that I return the favor."

"Uh guys," Rey called, looking up at last. "The cage is gone."

And so it was. It hung above them, dozens of feet in the air, on large ropes and hooks, sagging downwards like some steel and broken spider's web, the edges of the mesh wiring clawing for the damned beneath them like some ebullient angel of death.

Even with all the sound-suppressing material lining all the walls around them, Rey thought she could hear it. The unspoken call for blood and recompense for slights against their leader and employer. Even Mummy was doing it, his chest hacking and shaking as he stared at them, eyes dull as they focused on back on Rey and her friends.

"Careful," Ben said, angling his body to face the hallway that led to the locker room Rey had passed to arrive in the cage, "We're definitely not done."

" _Very_  perceptive, boy," Snoke commended them, and the sound of mocking clapping came through the speaker, "What did you think was going to happen when you had your little outburst? That I was- what? Going to let you walk away if you defeated a bunch of broken fools? Still a stupid child, I see. You have learned nothing!"

Ben spared a glance upwards but didn't respond to the man's taunts.

Rey looked at her friends. Phasma's cut was still bleeding, and some of it had gotten in her eyes, lending her a wild and deadly look that wouldn't have looked out of place on a greek amazon. Finn was gripping his stun baton with both hands and looked ready to be sick, while Hux was fiddling with something in his coat pocket. Poe's face had turned grim and serious, but she could see the strain he was under to avoid the mind-consuming splendorous pain of the break he'd undoubtedly worsened. Ben was the only one who looked primed and ready for a fight, but she could still see the harsh, heavy breathing of a man who'd been pushing his personal limits for weeks if not months.

And Rey? Her shoulder was beginning to ache more and more and it was getting hard to form a fist with her left hand without sending a panoply of nerve signals that told her she should stop fighting. Her head pounded from one of the blows she'd taken from Mummy earlier, and she was reasonably sure she'd twisted something at some point too, a fact that was just finally asserting itself in the form of a warm burning sensation in her right ankle.

"We caught them by surprise earlier," Ben rumbled as he edged closer to the hallway where the fighters were probably patiently ready. "They'll be ready now."

 _That_ was them by surprise? Rey wanted to swear out loud, but considering both Finn and Poe had already done so, she didn't bother. Instead, she assumed her own stance alongside Ben. They covered the entrance of the hallway in a semi-circle of bruises and exhausted limbs and waited.

They were dead in the water if anyone had a gun, but for some reason none of their competitors had brought weapons like that out. Not that she particularly wanted to die, but it was curiosity she couldn't help but wonder about. A place like this practically screamed  _secret weapons stash._  A unhallowed orchestra was playing above them, the guests all eager to see more from the impromptu special event. It sickened Rey that she was part of this farce, even if it she was glad to have Ben fighting by their side.

They stayed like that for seconds, staring into the empty hall. Seconds turned into minutes, which shifted into anxious nerve-wracking moments of blank silence from the end of the hallway. Rey's shoulder had stopped protesting at the various demands she made of it and fallen into a muted mutinous disagreement, with only momentary flares popping up every few seconds to remind her of her injuries.

"What's he waiting for?" Ben muttered, eyeing the door down at the end. He'd finally gotten his breathing under control, when Snoke's voice echoed throughout, stopping Rey from thinking any further.

"Forgive the delay, children," the man said, "Since you have so kindly volunteered for tonight's events, I thought it'd be appropriate to finish the night off with a preview of future shows for my friends."

The door opened just as the music cut out, replaced at last with the nightmarish, cataclysmic resounding drums from before, this time three times as loud powerful. Rey resisted the urge to clutch her ears, and wondered if Snoke just wanted to deafen them.

A man stepped through the door at the end of the hall. The passage was dimly lit on purpose, to exacerbate the loneliness and amp the excitement for those running into the burning light of the ring. Rey had to squint to see the man, but when she saw what he was carrying, her blood froze.

A spear, as long as he was tall, clunked against the floor with every step. He carried it in both hands, a wicked foot-long blade atop a pole of wood, and he walked in time with the drum beats like a soldier ready for battle. The shear of the blade seemed to cut the air around it, and gleamed impeccably in the empty light of the hall. Behind him, a woman followed. She too, carried a spear, and behind her Rey saw yet more people climb in, each with some stupidly lethal-looking weapon.

" _Fuck."_

* * *

Ben wondered if telling Snoke off earlier had been smart, but he shook that thought away. Smart or not, Snoke had probably been planning on making an example out of him and his friends the minute he and Rey had started kissing in the cage anyway. A momentary lapse in judgement (one that had sounded an awful lot like Han) had launched him into his tirade instead of waiting for a more opportune time, but it likely wasn't the cause for the mess they were in now.

He grit his teeth and suppressed a rising geyser of emotions that was typical whenever he thought too in depth about his father. Rey and the others needed help, and-

" _Fuck."_

Ben wasn't sure who'd said it, but he wanted to chime in right along with them at the sight of the fighters - people he'd fought and trained with for years - stepping through the door with bladed weapons.

Closing his eyes briefly, Ben let out a breath of frustration. Things had just gotten a lot harder. He'd originally been planning to hold them off in hallway entrance for however long he could manage, trusting in the tiny space to limit the amount of movement they had, but weapons changed things drastically. They offered practitioners an unprecedented advantage in reach, and the amount of damage they could do relative to the effort involved in avoiding them was incredibly unfair. Ben should know - he'd been doing bare-handed defense against weapons for weeks.

"What do we do, Ben?" Rey asked, and Ben looked to the side, noting how his friends were all shooting him their own concerned looks. It took him a second to place their expressions.

They were looking to  _him_  for advice?

Suppressing the urge to ask when the hell he'd become the responsible one, Ben shot a glance down the hall and considered his friend's various conditions.

He grit his teeth again, even as he said words that burned his throat. "Fall back."

"What?" Poe asked, seemingly confused.

"Fall back!" he barked, stepping away from the opening of the hallway, commanding, "We can't take them like this! Go down the other hall, see if we can get that door open!"

They wouldn't be able to, but at least the hall would offer them more protection, at least temporarily. Hopefully in the meantime, Ben would be able to frantically come up with some other slapdash plan. A hallway would limit the range of motion those spears had, but it would also limit the amount of space his friends had to move back...which was why he was planning on being between them and the spears - to hold them off as long as possible.

But, it seemed that Snoke had anticipated them doing something along those lines. When they were halfway across the ring, the other hall door opened, and a series of fighters each with their own weapon, began to stream in.

In seconds, they'd be surrounded.

Ben didn't curse. Cursing wouldn't have done them any good, and no swear word existed to properly encompass the sheer hopelessness of the situation.

The drums, those damn things that had followed him into his dreams and nightmares and sat beside him on those lonely nights when he'd thought himself well and truly gone, seemed to bounce in delight at the carnivale of danger that was creeping on Ben and his friends. Slowly, the fighters entered the main area of the ring, fanning out until eventually they surrounded Ben and his group. Ben counted at least a dozen people carrying spears or staffs, while one or two seemed content to lazily swing around a series of interconnected chains that he knew each had a bladed tip on the end.

His cheek pulsed at the thought of facing those things again. The Jiǔjiébiān was one of the oddest weapons Ben had ever personally heard of, but it just so happened that Snoke had somehow personally acquired a master of the damn thing and had been having him train students in private for years before Ben's arrival at  _The First Order_.

"Huddle up!" Ben called desperately, "Like before! Don't show your backs to them or you'll pay for it!"

"Oh, I'm afraid you'll pay for it soon enough,  _Ben Solo_ ," Snoke said and Ben had to stop the instinctive flinch he almost gave when he heard the man's spiteful pronunciation. "Assuming, of course, that you have nothing else you wish to say?"

Ben hesitated. Snoke was offering them a way out. Well, everyone except Ben.

"Well,  _boy_ , are you willing to listen to reason now?"

Ben's fist trembled as he thought of his friends, cut to ribbons due to his poor choices. If their opponents were barehanded maybe they could have had a chance, but Ben knew the logistics of fighting these people. He'd trained many of them, after all.

Within the protective circle he and his friends had formed, Hux was muttering, cursing and profaning every living deity available as he worked with something in his hands. Ben didn't check to see what, but he wagered it wouldn't do them any good.

Ben thought of his Uncle Luke being told over the phone about his latest ward's demise. Of Rose, who'd be left adrift without her two best friends. He thought of Poe, faceless and done for, a bright hope in an increasingly hopeless world, callously snuffed out. He thought of Phasma and Hux, his oldest friends, who'd done the stupidest, most irresponsible thing possible, which was make  _him_  their best man, and how they'd never get a chance to see it happen.

He thought of his mother, already a widow, receiving the news of her son's betrayal, never to learn the truth of his final moments, and how he'd renounced his mask and reclaimed his true self.

If he gave in, Snoke would not let him go. He'd never leave the ring alive, and it'd be far from a quick and painless death, but Ben could accept that. If he let himself be taken, the sole exception as he plead for his friends' lives, well...maybe that would make up for some of the shit he'd done.

Ben sighed, and bid his friends a quiet  _thank you_  within his mind, for saving him for at least a few minutes, from the monster he'd become. He stepped forward and began gearing himself up for the death knell of  _Ben Solo._

"Ben?" Rey asked from beside him, and he didn't look at her, too afraid if he did he'd stop himself. Rey was…well, he just couldn't say goodbye to her. He could save her life, but asking him to say goodbye to her was too cruel.

He wanted to punch Hux in the arm for being so stupid as to show up at a fight club, and then simultaneous hug the reckless fool for showing up a fight club  _for him._

He wanted to grab Poe in a headlock and then tease him mercilessly for all the stupid shit he'd pulled that night.

He didn't know Finn all that well, and right now, Ben was regretting it. Anyone who'd follow his friends into this kind of hellhole, who'd bring a freaking stun baton as the only weapon he had into a den of criminals and monsters, was good people.

Phasma...Phasma would understand. She was practical like that. She'd call him idiot, sniffle a little bit, and then drink a gallon of alcohol in remembrance, and pour some out for him. It'd be the good stuff too.

But Rey…

Ben sighed, remembering their conversation from earlier in the locker room. She really was his saving grace. A girl who, by all rights, should have seen the danger signs and run, but who'd instead thrown herself into the fire and pulled him from it, who'd saved him from burning in a cold and sterile underworld where his only comfort had been the notion that maybe he'd lose some day.

_I'll love you 'til the stars burn out._

Rey would never understand. But she'd be alive.

"Ben," Rey spoke softly, "Don't. Please."

Ah. So she could tell. That would only make what he had to do that much harder.

Ben took a breath, locked eyes with the closest spearmen, and walked, step by agonizing step, stopping mere inches from the tip of the blade. It hung at chest height, perfectly poised to cut through him with a thrust he knew the wielder of the weapon had perfected. It was a qiang, if Ben's estimation was right. His master had incorporated martial styles from all over the world under his banner, using his influence as a seventh dan to reach out and communicate with men in the name of honor or some other bullshit tripe. That he'd done the same with weapons did not surprise Ben.

Snoke's mirth seeped in and settled around them like a heavy blanket. "And lo, the prodigal son runs once more," he said, completely misunderstanding everything about Ben's intentions. "See how quickly he turns on you, girl? Not even five minutes after he denies his true name and he is back to obeying."

Rey nearly broke out of formation as she went to move towards Ben, but a shake of his head stopped her.

This was not a betrayal, and Ben doubted any one of his friends saw it that way. Snoke was just too limited in his view to understand something like sacrifice.

"Now then, Kylo Ren," Snoke addressed him with his expectant pleasure, "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Ben opened his mouth, ready to argue for the fate of his friends, when suddenly, the strangest noise started echoing throughout the arena.

Laughter.

Not the crazed half-terrified laughter of his friends as they fought and joked before the oncoming loss. Not the malignant, cancerous laughter of Alistair Snoke as he stood above them, looking down on them all like ants in the sand. True, innocent, childish laughter, like someone had just given a child a balloon. Or, alternatively, like an old man who'd just played a trick on a very foolish, very angry young student.

The drums seemed to slow to a crawl, and then blinked out of existence entirely. The audience had quieted down long ago in expectation. Or maybe they'd run. True bloodshed was different from bruises and broken bones, and not many had the stomach for it.

Heavy guitar riffs replaced what had been steady drums just moments before. It was a deep set of reverberating chords that Ben had listened to countless times growing up.

"God, you are just so  _full_  of it, aren't you?" said a voice. It echoed throughout the warehouse on the speakers like a sudden, and searing ray of light, there was something terrifyingly awesome about its presence.

The drums came in then, followed by Axl Rose's voice emitting the kind of howl that predated most conscious thought of a then, newly rehomed Ben Solo.

 Ben's heart leapt to his throat.  _It couldn't be._

"Who the hell keeps interfering with my sound system?!" Snoke roared, indignant as his moment of triumph seemed to falter in the face of this unnamed interloper. The volume for Snoke's feed abruptly plummeted, and the fighters surrounding them in the ring all nervously glanced around at each other, unsure of what to do about this sudden intrusion. 

> _Welcome to the jungle! We've got fun and games!  
>  We got everything you want honey, we know all the names._

"Me."

> _We are the people that can find whatever you may need  
>  If you got the money, honey we got your disease._

And then Luke Skywalker walked out into the ring. 

> _Welcome to the jungle we take it day by day,  
>  If you want it you're gonna bleed but it's the price to pay!_

He emerged from the leftmost hallway - the one that led to the challenger's locker rooms. He wore beige sweatpants and a black t-shirt, one Ben had gotten him years earlier for Christmas. On it, printed in big blocky white letters, it read,  _Rule One: Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man!_

"You!" Snoke screamed into the speaker, and Ben wondered if they'd all have enough good luck saved up for him to just drop dead of an apoplexy.

Luke waved up at the surveyor's box. Then, because this was clearly some form of afterlife, because Ben's life was  _not_  this fantastic, he turned his wave around and, finger by finger, lowered his digits until only the middle one remained.

For a brief, irresponsible moment born out of purest idiocy and juvenile amusement, Ben was beyond proud to be related to Luke Skywalker.

" _Kill hi-"_

The feed cut out.

For a moment the fighters seemed confused as to what to do. Did they attack the people who'd shown up and made a mockery of their entire life's purpose? Or did they gang up on one kooky looking old man with a joke shirt?

Ben helped make their decision for them by ducking, and bringing his arms up in a double-overhand block, knocked the spear in front of him wildly off course, just in time for Ben to turn parallel to the spear, grab it with both hands, and pull forcefully with one end. The spearman jerked forward, and Ben, using his superior leverage, slammed the butt of the weapon in the man's throat, dropping him.

He spun the spear in his hands, smashing the two closest fighter's weapons away with a brutal heave that would have shattered bone, had the pole hit. Those fighters backed away, suddenly unarmed and facing a very ready, very angry Ben Solo. Phasma was already moving, and he kicked one of the dropped staffs in her direction. She caught it with both hands, just in time to block an executioner's swipe that would have left her without a few inches up top. She returned the man's swipe by slamming the bottom the staff upwards, and then brought it down with a head strike, only for the shorter man to step back out of each.

His friends all huddled forward in the gap in the circle around them, Hux still fiddling with something in his hands, a piece of cloth and something else. Ben and Phasma took up positions on either side, defensively.

"You know," Phasma said almost lazily, as she moved her staff side to side, testing its weight, "I really need better friends. You guys just  _suck_  at parties."

"Budge over," Rey said next to him, and before he knew it, she was standing up beside him, holding the discarded spear of the other fighter.

"Do you even know how to use one of those?" Ben couldn't help but ask, eyeing the approaching group. Nine pole or spear-wielding fighters advanced around them, eyeing the trio. What had once been six weaponless fools had turned into three weapons turned on them, and suddenly Snoke's fighters didn't seem too eager to show off their skills anymore.

"Sure I do," Rey said, hefting piece in a two-handed grip that was all wrong, "Pointy-end goes in the other guy."

Ben blew some hair out of his face as he groaned. "I swear, you weren't nearly this cheeky when I left."

"Then you've been missing out, Benji! She's a regular ol' firecracker!" Phasma said, shouting the last words as she smacked a probing jab of a spear with an impressive side-swipe and then blocked two follow-up attacks.

That was another thing about these men, Ben noticed. They weren't trained to fight together as a group. They were too hesitant with the numerical advantage they had for that to be the case. They didn't want to move for fear of hurting their comrades. Weapons, especially long and bladed ones like the spears and staffs their opponents had, were dangerous to swing in close proximity of people you didn't want to skewer.

Ben spared a moment to search for his uncle beyond the line of Snoke's fighters. If he'd gotten his uncle killed by coming out there (and just  _how_  did Luke find them?) Ben would never forgive himself.

He needn't have worried. Apparently the chain whip users had decided to confront his old master, and Ben had only a moment, but he watched his uncle. Master Luke moved with experience and a lithe grace that belied the man's age. He weaved through the whirlwind of blades like he was going on a summer stroll, dodging each advancing fighter and making an all-around mockery of them as he did so.

Ben's attention was brought back when, in a mad dash to get a hit in, one of the spearmen thrust at his leg, tossing the spear on a mad attempt to pierce their defenses. On instinct, Ben sucked in his gut and leapt up, passing over the makeshift javelin, only for him to realize his mistake when he realized he was hanging in the air and unable to react to the the three other thrusts aiming at him from multiple directions.

Rey and Phasma's respective weapons came up, and smacked away two of the weapons, only for the third one to make it through. It jabbed in at Ben's calf, drawing a scream of pain from him. It didn't slice his achilles tendon thankfully, and so Ben landed by bringing his spear down in a lumberjack's slive that cut the offending man's hand almost in two.

The man shrieked and was pulled back by the scruff of his boxers by one of the rear fighters, and he fell to the ground, clutching at a gaping wound that would fill Ben's nightmares for months.

"Holy shit!" Finn said behind them, and Ben got the impression he was pointing at something. "It's raining men!"

Hux cackled hysterically, and, as if Ben needed further proof his friend was drunk and insane, he raised his arms up to the sky and celebrated this sudden proclamation by shouting, "Hallelujah!"

Ben didn't have to wait long to find out what they were talking about.

Several men were climbing over the edges of the pit and starting to jump down. They didn't look like normal fighters - more like the several regular guards that Snoke kept around to keep things running smoothly. One even jumped down near where Luke and the chain whip fighters were, probably planning to help out. Unfortunately, he landed right behind Luke, and his dumbass advance was halted by one very sharp weapon digging deep into the man's clavicle after Luke dodged it.

Luke didn't even react. Instead, he ducked under the extended chain, practically skipped backwards, and watched as the second Jiujiebian, with too much momentum came down on the first, tangling them irreparably.

Christ, Ben hadn't even managed to take care of one, and Luke just schooled the same people that had given his his scar like they were impudent children.

There was a thud from behind Ben and the girls, and he was briefly worried for a moment, before he heard the musical sound of a taser and Poe's kihap, followed by the unmistakable sound of a human body hitting the floor.

"Watch it!" Hux shouted, apparently still too preoccupied with whatever he was doing rather than worry about the very sharp pieces of metal coming for their skins.

Rey whooped as she smacked another staff away, sounding far too entertained for a girl he used to think as sweet and innocent. That whoop immediately turned into a yelp as her balance was thrown off by overcompensating for a wild retaliating slash at an opponent between her and Poe.

She rebalanced herself against Ben, and for a brief second they worked in unison, back to back - him a whirlwind of metal death and she his accompanying devil. They pushed away four others, and Ben huffed and puffed, the exhaustion of wielding a large stick with a heavy piece of metal on an end starting to catch up to him.

He felt a grab high on his thigh as he leaned forward into a sweep warning strike, and looked down to see Rey pushing off momentarily for an absolutely devastating slam with the pole end of the spear into someone's hands, causing them to drop it.

"Are you really trying to cop a feel right now?" he asked, and then wondered when in the hell they'd started flirting while fighting for their lives.

Rey rolled her eyes as she split off again, eyeing the remaining enemies warily. "Don't flatter yourself. I lost my balance."

It must have been genetics speaking because the next thing out of his mouth was, "I'm sure you did, sweetheart. Warn a guy next time though, will ya?"

"Hi!" Poe shouted behind them, interrupting them once more, "Yeah! Hey! Fight for our lives going on! Can you cool it with the flirting?!"

Hux let out a visceral and guttural roar of victory and Ben was just about to ask what the hell he was cheering about when the sharp pungent and bitter scent of alcohol invaded his nostrils.

Enough was enough. Ben could appreciate his friend needing to cope but drinking in the middle of a fight-

A warm puff of heat behind Ben told him something else had happened. He chanced a glance backwards and saw Hux standing proudly, holding a ball of...fire?

No. Not fire. He had a bottle of something in his hands, and stuffed around the top, burning was a small piece of cloth.

Ben's eyes widened, and, right then, he caught sight of the crazed grin on his best friend's face. "Hux! Fuck!"

"Oh, holy  _sh_ -"

Hux ignored them and threw the burning cocktail right at the group of fighters. They all dodged out of reflex, and it went sailing by.

For a second Ben thought it didn't work, and then a thermal bloom him from the front as all the flammable contents in the nearly full bottle caught fire at once, and  _exploded_ outwards, showering several people in the area with small chips of superheated glass as it propulsed by. Two of the men facing them fell back, scrabbling at their backs. The fire materialized instantly and Ben swore.

"Hux! Are you trying to get us killed?!" Finn yelled, and Ben was inclined to agree.

Rey, scrapper and continual surprise all night, charged at one of the lone remaining enemies. The enemy brought up his staff to defend, but her spear met against it and she slid the weapon down the opposing wood to her enemies grip, which he quickly let go of. He backed away, nervously glancing at the fire building behind him, then turned and ran away, dragging a downed man to his feet.

The others looked behind them at the building and growing fire and, deciding that they'd rather deal with the consequences later, dropped their weapons and started running.

And that was when Master Luke showed up.

* * *

Rey had not often seen Luke in casual garb.

It had been a shock hearing that voice on the speaker system (and how the hell did he get access?), right when Ben had been about to do something monumentally pigheaded to make a martyr out of himself again (seriously, she needed to have a  _talk_ with him about that), but perhaps the most shocking part had been seeing him walk out in his casual clothes and give Snoke the finger.

There was something wrong with her when that was the thing that bothered her the most about Luke showing up.

"You kids," he grumbled, breathing heavily as perspiration from being so close the the growing fire began to build, "are  _so_ grounded...when we get out...of here."

Rey drew herself and her spear (an absolutely wonderful new toy she'd just discovered and planned on revisiting) up straight and said, indignantly, "I don't even live with you anymore!"

_Why? Why brain, why?_

"I don't care," he thundered, before turning around to face the guards who now approached them, "I swear I'll find a way." He grimaced and clutched at his chest. "Fuck."

It was the first time she'd ever heard Luke cuss. "Luke!" she cried out, but didn't break formation around the others, "Are you alright?"

"Of course not!" he snapped, and turned to look at her "I'm fifty two years old and fighting another goddamn gang with another goddamn Solo at my side and the goddamn building's on fire! Again!" He seemed to do a double-take on seeing her properly. "What the hell are you wearing, Rey?"

Rey looked down at her outfit, still in sports bra and shorts. She didn't see anything wrong with it. "Nothing!"

There was another hail of old-man mutterings that she couldn't hear, right as the newest batch of enemies closed in around them - seriously, how many thugs did Snoke have? - and it finally ended with him saying, "Yeah I can  _see_  that. Do I want to know why you're half-naked in a place like this?"

Ben chuckled and laughed, shaking his head ruefully. "You really don't Uncle Luke."

Luke turned to him then, and for a moment Rey was afraid Luke was going to tear into Ben for all the stupid things he'd done, before Luke's eyes softened and he said, "So, finally came to your senses, did you? What, you finally listen to what Rey had to say? Kid can be convincing."

" _Convincing,"_ Poe snorted from behind them. "You could say that."

Luke's look would have pierced a man from half-across the country. "What does  _that_ mean?"

"Bombs away!" Hux yelled, a little too gleefully, and the second Molotov cocktail sailed overhead and left. This time, it landed and shattered against a wall. The strange sound-absorbent material that was responsible for keeping the sounds from bleeding out and hammering everyone's eardrums went up in a brilliant white hot flare, and the heat backlash was almost enough to singe her eyebrows.

Rey and the others crouched, and the men who had previously been readying for the next part of the fight, cried out and threw themselves to the ground from the intensity. Some began to run away, out through the hallways on each side of the ring. People had already come and carried off the unconscious ones, but there was still too many people to account for.

"Hux, just so you know," Phasma said, her voice a placid sea of calm as she stood, watching the fire grow and consume everything around them at a disturbing pace, "I have never been more attracted to you."

"We need to get out!" Finn wailed, ever the voice of panic, reason, and sometimes both. "This whole place is going to burn!"

"Chewie and Lando are somewhere in the building," Luke explained in rapidfire speech, "They should have secured the exit by now but we really need to get out of here! That kind of material burns fast and the chemicals it produces are probably toxic!"

They dropped their heavy weapons and started moving to the hallway exit, taking care to avoid the flames that were building up along the walls and creeping along the floor. Rey felt uncomfortably hot, like the beginning stages of being cooked inside an oven, and she could feel her lungs start to scorch as they reached the hallway. That area hadn't caught fire yet but the approaching flames along the walls suggested it was only a matter of time.

"But what about everyone else?" Rey asked in a breathless gasp.

"Trust me, there's not a lot of people still left in the building," Luke shouted, a painful wheeze in his voice, "We may have called out  _FIRE_ a few times while hiding in the audience."

Rey remembered the sounds of stampeding people. She'd thought that had been people still just crying out and clamoring for more fights, but she supposed it made more sense that they were running away from the fight, and possible fire.

Another, closer heat along the small of her back told her to look back and dammit, there was Hux with his third, and thankfully last, bottle. It was on fire.

"Don't you dare!" Snoke boomed on the speakers at last. "Don't you  _dare,_  you ginger rat-faced miscreant. You throw another one of those things and I will hunt you down to the ends of your natural lifespan and I will make sure that you never-"

Phasma leapt and grabbed the Molotov cocktail from Hux's hands. "Give me that!"

"Master Phasma," Snoke crooned, pleased, and Rey wanted to rub a cheese grater along the inside of her brain for how disgusting it sounded, "I'm glad to see you've come to your senses."

Phasma hesitated. Then, she grabbed the back of Hux's head, brought him in for a passionate and intense kiss that was clearly inappropriate for a burning building and more suited as a lead-in scene to a triple-X rated movie. Hux returned the kiss with gusto, apparently entirely okay with this turn of events and the fact that his weapon had been traded for a pair of far hotter lips.

"Guys!" Poe shouted, sounding aggrieved, "Not you too!  _C'mon!_ "

"What the hell does he mean by  _too?_ " Luke muttered.

Finally, Phasma released Hux, and smirking she looked up at the surveyors box, where Snoke stood, looking down on them with the kind of cold-hearted and inhuman gaze of a scientist observing bacteria.

"Hey Snoke!" she shouted, and Rey had just enough time mutter " _Oh no,"_  before the woman yelled, "Consider this my resignation!"

Snoke was halfway to screaming " _No!"_  when she tossed the bottle.

It sailed up, up, and up, but came nowhere near as close as she'd probably been intending. Instead, it continued tumbling after reaching its zenith and eventually hit one of the recently released and flowing crimson banners around the building. The bottle wrapped in it, and Rey wondered if it was really going to be that anticlimactic. Then the fabric shriveled, and practically incinerated in the blink of an eye, the fire racing up along its edges at a speed to close to tell. Stray burning pieces flew off, and landed on the other banners, igniting those as well.

Rey stared at Phasma. And then Hux. And then Ben, because he turned to her.

" _I'm_ not the one who invited them," he said, almost defensively.

They turned and booked it down the hall, coming out in the locker room Rey had skeeved her way through twice already, and sprinted their way out. There was no one in the rooms or halls, and it was an eerie ghost town of a place. The fire had chewed its way through the paneling surrounding the benches of the audience and the heat was blazing as they jammed their way through it as quick as they could manage.

They passed the burnt inferno-lit passageway that fighters took and came out to the main area, watching as Lando and Chewbacca held open the door for stragglers, of which they were the last. A piece of staging collapsed, sending screams and dust sailing in the air, and Rey coughed, feeling the effect of too much smoke filling her lungs. It smelled weird, like a burning rubbery smell that somehow tasted sweet, and Rey knew she didn't want to spend a second longer in there than she had to.

They sprawled out into the parking lot area, the cool night air almost burning Rey's lungs in an entirely new way. The temperature was quickly rising outside, and Rey looked around, seeing the numerous guests and rich idiots desperately jam themselves in the lot as they tried to escape the fallout of the building. There was a faint ringing noise in her ears.

Lando, wearing his own leather jacket that was awfully reminiscent of a man they'd both mourned, laughed out loud. His voice was a deep jolly thing as he turned and wrapped an arm around Chewie. "Oh, Han would have  _loved_  this."

Chewbacca for his part, instead of falling to pieces like the asylum escapee hanging on to him, chuckled. "Would've bitched about it every single step of the way, though."

"Oh absolutely!" Lando roared, and slapped his knee. Like some old fashioned cartoon grampa.

Luke drew to his full height, and glared at both of them. Neither of them reacted.

He coughed into his hand, trying to grab their attention. "Hehem."

No response.

Finally, after muttering something about being cut from the same cloth, Luke turned to them and said, "You guys need to get going. Grab the Falcon and run. Me and these idiots can handle things around here. Make sure everyone gets out okay, y'know?"

"But wait!" Rey said, stopping her friends from running in the direction of the Falcon. She cupped her ears in hope of somehow stopping the ringing. She could see teams of guards patrolling the outside of the building, and for a moment she wondered if Snoke had come out yet. "How'd you find us? How did you know we were here?"

The ringing continued and for a moment she was worried that she'd gotten a concussion somehow. She swatted at her ear, and she was about to ask if anyone else could hear it when she realized they could. They were all staring at Finn, who had his cellphone out.

"Dude," Poe said, facepalming, "You didn't even put it on silent? Don't you know the first rule of undercover missions is to never keep your phone on?"

"Like you're so much better,  _Mr.-I'm-Gonna-Fight-A-Crazy-Guy-Even-Though-I've-A-Broken-Arm!_ "

Chewbacca stepped up, and Rey realized she'd forgotten how tall he was. He towered over her and seemed to move with the kind of affable strength of a living tree trunk, and she was abruptly struck with the thought that she was very glad none of the people they'd fought that night were as tall as him. He clapped Ben on the shoulder jokingly, an action which caused her boyfriend ( _whoa_ , that was going to take some getting used to) to puff out an  _oof_  in surprise.

"The ol' girl's still got that GPS chip in her," he said, a sort of knowing cheerfulness to his powerful booming voice that told her he was somehow far more aware of events than he'd let on, "Han installed it a while back, under the dashboard, for emergencies, and I'm glad to see you haven't scrapped her yet."

"And as for  _how_  we knew you were here," Lando said, eyes twinkling in the burning light of the building behind them, "well, I'm sure your friends' incoming call is going to make things clearer. Just uh, take it easy on the fella' alright?"

All at once, they turned to Finn, who was crossing his arms and glaring at all of them. "What? We needed backup."

"Now go!" Luke ordered, looking away at the pile of cars in front of them. There were flashing lights in some not-so-small quantities over there. "I know you hid the Falcon somewhere, so get going! We can handle the authorities! You just need to get going before Snoke's men find you're still here. Meet us back at the Dojang and we'll take care of this!"

Reluctant, but relenting nevertheless, Rey grabbed Ben's hand and pulled him away from watching the place where so many terrible and unnameable acts of petty cruelty and violence, all done in the name of entertainment, burned to ash. She had no idea what he was feeling, whether it was good or bad, but she and everyone else had gone there that night to save him and she was damned if she was going to let him stare at the place where it all kept going wrong.

At some point during the walk to the car, Finn's cellphone started going off again. In due course with the way the night was going, instead of just shutting it off, Finn picked up the call, only to be met with an absolutely vociferous voice of some thunder god asking why she was getting alerts on her phone about a  _fire_ on fire lane 66 and Rey heard the phrase "So help me I will come down there myself!"

"Hey! Rose!" she heard Finn say unconvincingly, "Uh hey, yeah! No no! Fine, totally fine. Just a, a gas leak, yeah, just a gas leak."

When Rey looked back at him, she noticed he had a phone held away from his ear, as their mutual friend screeched into the receiver. He looked pleadingly at her but she just shook her head. He was the one who'd made the call, so he got to deal with a panicky Rose. "Nah, Rose, don't worry, it's all fine. The building's- what? Hah.  _Gosh._  No, the building's not on fire. Why would you think that? It's all good, we're fine here….uh, how are you?"

Then he frowned and pulled the phone away. "I think she hung up on me."

Rey's heartbeat had finally managed to get almost all the way back to normal human-levels as the six of them sped-walked over to where the Falcon was hidden. And then it almost stopped entirely when she saw three men - three  _fucking dirtbags -_ beating at the Falcon with baseball bats.

The Falcon.  _Han's_  Falcon.

All the rage she'd let out and gotten rid of in the ring rushed back and sung in her veins as she let out an animalistic roar, getting the men's attention almost immediately. Without bothering to wait for her friends, Rey charged in the car's direction, ready to beat the everloving  _shit_  out of those three human-shaped pieces of scum, only to be caught around the waist by a strong arm. Her forward force working against Ben's arm caused her to fly up off the ground, as he pulled her back to his front, holding her firmly in place so she couldn't attack.

"How  _dare_  you!" she shrieked, either at Ben or the men who'd stopped vandalizing her car to stare - she wasn't really sure which.

"Rey," Ben said in what may have passed for a calming voice, "Think this through. Those aren't trained fighters, but there's a reason Snoke has those men guarding the doors. I know you learned bat-defense moves, but not against  _three people_."

She wanted to remind him that they'd just faced down multiple armed opponents, but at least a good three-quarters of all of that had just come down to pure dumb luck.

She thrashed against him, and she may as well have been a small child for the good it did. "Put me  _down!"_

"Phas, help me out here," he muttered to the blonde who was mostly watching in amusement.

A devilish grin formed across the woman's face as she sauntered up to the three men who seemed to be trying to decide whether or not they were going to have to use the bats they held to defend themselves.

"Hello gentlemen," Phasma greeted in a suspiciously kind voice. "Why don't I explain the sort of situation you three are in. See, my good friend over there-" she gestured to Ben, "you might recognize him. I think you'd know him as the  _Chosen One_?"

Rey felt Ben bristle at the use of his abandoned title, but his arm was still solid around her waist. She gave an experimental push away from him, but his other arm finally came up and ended up wrapping her in what was basically a bear hug. "Ben," she muttered, "Let me  _go_."

"If I do, are you going to go after one of them?" he murmured into her ear, and she absolutely  _did not shiver_.

But then her eyes landed on the Falcon's smashed headlights, and she couldn't help but hiss, "Of fucking  _course-_ "

"That's what I thought," he snorted. "Just, chill. Phasma's got this. I think."

Rey perked up as she heard Phasma say,"-dorable little cupcake in his arms? Yes,  _well_ , she just managed to beat your  _Chosen One_  in a cage match, so if you'd like to keep smashing up a crappy old hunk of junk, go right ahead, but you'll have the  _Chosen One_ , the cute little thing that kicked his ass, two other Black Belts, and a guy with a taser to deal with. Sound like fun?"

"Hey," Hux grunted, "What 'bout me?"

"Oh, right," Phasma huffed. "And my slightly insane, drunken, apparently-a-pyro fiance." She crossed her arms, and cocked a hip. "What do you gentlemen think? You up to the fight?"

Phasma sounded like she definitely was, and Rey highly approved of the woman's choice.

The three men glanced around at each other and for a minute Rey was a bit concerned that they were too idiotic to know when they were outmatched. She'd take them out herself if she got the chance, because  _how fucking dare they_  touch the Fal-

"Don't forget, your asshole boss is currently locked in a room in a burning building. Dontcha think maybe you oughta go help?" Poe piped in.

 _That_  got their attention. The men shot each other urgent looks and dropped their bats and ran, seemingly in the direction of the nearest door to the building.

Phasma scoffed, "Loyal to the end, I guess. Idiots." She shook her head, "Damn, I should have thought of that."

Finally, just as Rey saw the men get to the building, Ben let her go, and without thinking she dropped into a full sprint toward them, but somehow he must have broken the laws of physics, because even with a nice head-start he caught up to her in no time and swept her up into a bridal carry. "Nope, not a chance, sweetheart," he scolded.

If she wasn't so angry, she'd probably have been purring at the idea of spending so much time in his arms.

Poe started laughing, and shook his head, "Shit, Rey, did you not get enough of a fight inside?"

"Do you  _see_  what they did to the car?" she snapped.

From her view, it seemed they'd managed to smash all the lights, possibly break one of the mirrors off, and the car's body had sustained fairly heavy damage. Just looking at it made her heart ache. This wasn't just a car - this wasn't even just  _her_  car. This was  _Han's_  car. This was the gift he'd always meant to give to his wayward and estranged son, and to see it like this - tarnished and destroyed - didn't just pain and enrage Rey. It cut at her, in a spot too close to home. Someone had come in and hurt her family, had damaged it in such a way that fed a spewing pool of acrimony in her and she wanted them  _gone_.

She tried to roll in Ben's arms in an attempt to get him to drop her, but he just held tighter. "Stop wriggling or I'll throw you over my shoulder," he threatened lowly. "You know, last time I picked you up like this, you really didn't seem to mind. Could you maybe go back to being like that? It was cute."

"Fuck you, Ben," she barked.

He chuckled, and because the night wasn't done surprising her, he replied slyly, "Maybe later."

Once his words registered, her anger dissipated a bit, and curiousity and bashfulness took its place. She was already red from all the running and blushing, but she was sure that if that hadn't been the case, she would have been turning crimson. "Oh?"

Ben snorted. "Come on, we both need to get cleaned up. And we need to get back to Luke's and make sure he's okay."

At some point, Hux, Poe, and Finn had climbed into the back, and Phasma had settled into the passenger's seat, leaving the driver's and middle front seats for her and Ben, but when Rey noticed the long, deep scratches along the driver's side of the car, anger flooded back into her system.

It wasn't just a car. It was the  _Falcon_. Han's legacy - hours, and hours poured into it, just so it could be given to Ben, and now... _now._

Rey wanted to cry - wanted to  _scream_  and strangle and-

"I'm going to  _kill_ them!" she screeched, desperately trying to squirm out of Ben's grasp, "Fucking  _assholes! Fuck_  them! Put me  _down!_ I'll  _kill-_

"Ben!" Phasma shouted from the car's open window, "would you  _please_ shut her up! We at least need to  _pretend_  we're trying to be inconspicuous."

Rey was about to yell back at Phasma, but she didn't get a chance to before Ben's lips met hers in a bruising kiss. He held her tightly to his chest, and his lips moved over hers furiously while her hands wrapped around the back of his head, tugging roughly at his hair.

In the background Hux whined, "Seriously? That's really  _not_  what she meant."

"At least she's not yelling death threats anymore," Phasma sighed.

"Honestly though, the whole kissing each other to shut them up thing?" Poe helpfully pointed out in the back, "It works."

Ben groaned into her mouth and her tongue ran along his bottom lip. At some point, he must have stepped closer to the car, because Rey felt him maneuver her so their chest were pressed together, and her back hit the passenger window. She wrapped her legs around his torso, her anger either forgotten, or funneled into the kiss. She bit down on his lower lip and  _sucked_  and Ben's hips started grinding against her, and that was pretty much when her mind blanked.

"Are you two just fucking with us right now?" Finn shouted anxiously from the car. "You know we're still here, right?"

A minute later, Rey moaned as Ben started nipping at her neck and Phasma snapped, "Oh for the love of God, that's  _it._ I was happy to let it go when it was just a kiss, but I did  _not_  sign up to watch my friends attempt live porn, you idiots!"

"Oy! Lovebirds!"

Someone had thrown an open water bottle out the window at them, splashing them both. They finally split away and both glared at the dead man who dared to interrupt them so rudely.

Of  _course_  it was Hux.

"You both realize we're literally running away from an illegal, underground fight club that we just fought our way out of and used  _fucking molotov cocktails_  to escape from, yes? I assume you hear all the sirens, headed our way? I'm pretty sure you all beat the shit out of a bunch of people, and I definitely just committed arson." He stared at them with wide eyes, "And you're, what, starting foreplay in the parking lot? This isn't a fucking action movie. Get in the damned car! You can fuck each other  _later_ , okay?"

It would seem committing arson was a good way to sober up, because dammit, if Hux wasn't right.

Ben blinked. "Right, yeah, we need to get out of here."

"Yes,  _thank you_ ," Hux said, his voice seeping with exasperation. "Just get us out of here, drop us all off somewhere and  _then_  you can do... _that_." Then he muttered to Phasma, "Horny morons are gonna get us arrested."

Rey watched, amused as a pink tinge started appearing on Ben's cheeks. He set her down and as she opened the car door, she came to the conclusion that he simply wouldn't fit in the middle seat between her and Phasma, so she slid in, patting the driver's seat next to her. She held up the keys to Ben, but when she looked up, he'd frozen.

She glanced at him curiously as his eyes traced over the car. His mouth opened as if he was about to say something, but he couldn't seem to get it out, and he just shook his head.

"Dude," Hux snapped, "Check your daddy issues at the door and  _drive_. We need to get out of here."

Ben took a deep breath and nodded, sliding in next to Rey. He took the steering wheel in both hands, and let his breath out slowly, murmuring, "I haven't been in this car since- since-."

Her hand landed on his knee, and she whispered, "It's okay, it-it's just a car."

He gave her a tight smile, and put the key in the ignition, jiggling it just the way Han had taught her to. When Ben reached over to grab the stick that was by Rey's legs to shift the manual car's gears, she smirked, and couldn't help but think  _that's really not how I thought things would go, the first time his hand went between my legs._

It was only when Rey heard laughs and a groan from the backseat, cackles from Phasma, and when she saw Ben turn a deep shade of red, that she realized she'd managed to say it out loud.

"Uh, yeah, that reminds me. What the hell sort of flirting advice did you guys give Rey?" Ben asked dryly.

The woman snorted, "Please, we all watched you two. As  _if_  you're complaining." Then she turned to Rey and rolled her eyes, letting out another laugh, "But, maybe turn the filter back on for a bit, cupcake."

* * *

They'd just pulled out from under the hiding spot under the tree when the high beams from hell shown in from the back of the car. "Kylo Ren! Stop right there!" said an authoritative voice, on a megaphone. It sounded a little like the guard who let them in to the building, "Kylo Ren! Do not move! Get out of the vehicle!"

Poe groaned and muttered some foreign sounding curse under his tongue, but Rey caught the general gist of it.

"Grandmaster Snoke demands your presence, boy!" shouted the voice. It had a harsh graveling quality to it, and Rey re-evaluated her previous assessment to maybe being one of the men they'd fended off earlier that night.

There was a small second of calm in the car, as each of them seemed to realize the situation, and the only reasonable solution.

"Punch it!" Finn yelled, pointing forwards.

"Wait wha-"

Rey had no idea what had happened. One second they were holding up  _who knows_  how many cars behind them, and the next Ben had slammed his feet on the pedals, swapped the shift stick to something absurd, and suddenly they were racing down the 20mph exit road at highway level speeds and beyond.

She was just about to comment on how ridiculously good at driving the Falcon he was when Ben twisted the wheel, eating a turn and skating by and outcropping tree at a speed not conducive to the general survival of anyone in the car.

More lights appeared behind them. A pair of cars trailed them, blinding and dangerous with the rumbling noise of exhaust that sounded like a train headed to hell, and each car seemed to be packing more horsepower than she would have guessed was possible to fit in such small frames.

"I can't lose them!" Ben yelled, looking up and seeing the approaching cars close in on them. The Falcon banked another turn. There was an avian-like screech of the wheels as he burned rubber, and as dirt road turning into pavement.

Several people were screaming, Rey realized. Herself being one of them. Poe, Finn and Hux were each clutching themselves or each other. Phasma was looking sick, ruffling through the glovebox as if there were any hope of anything being in there.

But it wasn't in the glovebox…

Rey's eyes widened as she saw the makeshift button Han had drilled and planted in the dashboard in place of the air conditioning. The one Phasma had warned Poe against touching the last time they were in there. The thing was crude, maybe the size of a thumb, and Han had told her to absolutely never press the button unless it was a last resort, and she realized that, for Han Solo, getting chased by two cars in the pitch black of night while running away from a burning building absolutely counted as a last resort.

"Rey," Phasma warned, seeing what Rey was looking at, "Don't do it! We have no idea what it does!"

But Rey didn't. It was Ben.

He looked down, hearing the warning and wondering what it was about, he saw what Rey was looking at, even as he jerked the Falcon out of the way of another roadblock without looking up. Rey saw his eyes widen, and a victorious, smirking, and all-around cocky grin took shape on his face as he slammed his fist into the button, eliciting a panicked yell from Phasma and an exultant and joyous laugh from Rey.

The Falcon bucked from behind, and Rey wondered what had just happened, when she heard the amazing and absolutely indelible sound of tires exploding. The cars behind them screeched to a halt, the metal of their suddenly flattening tires rimming against the pavement on the highway, and they were gone, gone, gone, trailing far behind the Falcon a she outsped them both.

There was a moment of silence as the chaos of the world they left behind seemed to suffer a quiet and deserving death in their rearview mirror. "Holy shit, Ben," Finn said, at last, "I think you just saved our lives."

Ben huffed, seeming embarrassed and Rey could have sworn she saw him blush, before answering back, "Then I guess we're pretty even then, Finn."

After a few minutes of awkward, awed silence as everyone seemed to realize the chase was over, Ben swallowed hard, and huffed. " _Anyway._  Uh. I'm going to put some music on."

As they blazed past a resting stop at a gas station that seemed so strangely quiet Rey wondered if they were even alive anymore, Ben fiddled with the radio. Finally he found a station that had decent signal, and they listened to the last thirty seconds of a Rolling Stones song.

And then the music changed. Rey didn't think much of the song that played (she was a bit too caught up in the wonder that was Ben's hand, suddenly on her knee)...until they got to the chorus.

> _"We didn't start the fire,_  
>  _It was always burning,_  
>  _Since the world's been turning._
> 
> _We didn't start the fire,_  
>  _No we didn't light it,_  
>  _But we tried to fight it."_

In seconds the car had gone silent, and everyone looked around at each other before bursting into laughter.

"Oh my God," Phasma chuckled, "That's fucking  _perfect_."

Even Ben let out a barking laugh, and started gasping to catch his breath. "Guys, guys, I have to change it," he chortled, "I can't keep this on, it's too ridiculous."

Rey was laughing so hard tears had started falling from her eyes, and she reached up to turn the radio dial, landing it on the next station.

> " _Burn baby burn, disco inferno;  
>  Burn baby burn, burn that mother down."_

She threw her head back in laughter, and heard Hux snickering from the backseat while Poe and Finn sounded like they were barely holding it together.

"No fucking way," Ben breathed through laughs. "Phas, can you just find a CD or something? This is fucking ridiculous."

Phasma seemed to hold back a grin as she reached past Rey to pop in a CD she'd pulled out of her purse. "Grabbed this from your car, Benji. Figured it might...uh...come in  _handy_."

Rey frowned, wondering about her tone, but didn't worry much about it until she saw the CD case. "Oh, is that the one I made?"

The woman's grin somehow grew even more evil as she nodded, and Rey wasn't really sure why until Phasma skipped ahead a few songs.

Less than thirty seconds later, Rey realized she recognized the song, but she sure as hell hadn't put it on the CD. A quick look over at Ben (his eyes had gone wide and he was working his lips together, obviously trying not to laugh or say anything), and she recalled a conversation she'd had earlier that evening.

> _"Considering how flustered he got over that mixed tape, I think he'd probably pass out," Hux commented._
> 
> _Rey frowned. "What do you mean? Why would he get flustered over that?"_
> 
> _Suddenly Phasma went silent, and a grin grew across Hux's face as he breathed, "Oh, Phas, you magnificent, wonderful bitch. That really was you, wasn't it? You should have seen his face when that song came on."_

"Phasma," Rey growled, "Seriously?!"

She glared over at the woman, who'd clapped a hand over her mouth. Her shoulders were shaking with silent laughter, and after a moment, she choked out, "What can I say? I thought it made an excellent addition."

"Wait," Ben interrupted, " _You_  put that song on here?"

That was when something clicked in Rey's mind, and her head whipped over to look at Ben, "This whole time, you thought  _I_  put that on?"

He shrugged, and said shyly, "Well what was I supposed to think?"

"Oh my  _God_ ," Rey groaned, "Phasma, I swear to-"

"You should have  _seen_  how red Ben turned when it came on!" Hux laughed from the backseat. "Funniest shit I've ever seen."

"Wow, Phasma, that's..." Poe went quiet for a minute before cackling, "That's downright evil. I'm impressed."

"Well  _thank you,_  Dameron. I try," she replied. "Plus, it's not like it didn't work out."

"Y'know, while we're on the topic," Hux said, "Ben, just out of curiosity, did Rey happen to proposition you during the fight? Like, sexually?"

Rey blanched, and slapped a hand to her face as Ben started coughing, and making startled, choking noises.

Phasma turned her head to the backseat and nodded. "Ah, yeah, I'd say that's a yes."

"Oh my God," Rey moaned. "I hate you all." She buried her head in her hands. "You're all terrible people."

"Awww," Phasma said sweetly, "love you too, sugarplum."

* * *

Once they'd dropped everyone off at their various dorm or apartment, Rey scooted over into the passenger's seat and stared over at Ben for a moment. At some point during the ride, reality had hit, and Rey realized they didn't know for sure if the others had made it out of the building okay.

It seemed Ben had been thinking along the same lines, because his lips were pressed in a thin line, and he said quietly, "I'm sure everyone's fine. Luke's smart, and I'm pretty sure Lando and Chewie have been in worse situations than that."

She nodded, but his words didn't make her feel much better. She bit her lip and worried at the fraying fabric at the edge of her seat for the few minutes it took to get from her apartment building, where they'd left Hux and Phasma, and finally let out a sigh of relief when she saw Luke's car parked in front of the Dojang. Ben sighed too, and relaxed back into his seat, no longer clutching the wheel with a death-grip.

He parked the car by Luke's, and Rey followed him into the Dojang, her heart warming as he clutched her hand just as they passed through the door. The room was dim, only lit by whatever light was streaming through the doorway into Luke's office. They both poked their heads in the doorway and saw Luke, slumped over his desk and a large bottle of ibuprofen.

"Hey kids," he grumbled, "Glad you made it - go get cleaned up, okay?"

Rey frowned, and glanced at the bruises that were forming on most of the man's exposed skin. "You okay, Luke?"

He looked up with tired eyes and nodded. "Just getting too old for this shit." He waved in the direction of the locker rooms and mumbled, "Go on, go get cleaned up. We can talk when you both aren't bleeding."

Part of her wanted to just go hug the man, but realistically, her arms felt a little too dead to properly wrap around him, so she muttered a  _yes sir_ , and pulled Ben off in the direction of the girl's locker room, suddenly thankful for the fact that she had a habit of leaving extra clothes and towels in a locker she'd claimed for herself years earlier.

Ben didn't question her, and let her bring him into the empty locker room, which was a relief because her nerves had suddenly kicked in, and she didn't really feel like explaining that she didn't like the idea of being in separate rooms. She'd just gotten him back, and her evening had been scary, dangerous, and hellish, and she was just a bit too skittish to be alone.

"I have some clothes you can change into," she mentioned, unlocking her locker. "Sweatpants and a t-shirt okay?"

"Uh, I really don't think your stuff will fit me," he chuckled, "Thanks, but-"

"These are actually yours," she interrupted shyly, holding out a pair of dark gray sweatpants and a black t-shirt. "I  _may_  have forgotten to give them back."

When she looked up at him, he had an eyebrow raised, and his lips curled into a smirk. "I should have known. I've been wondering where those went."

"Sorry," she cringed, "I really didn't  _mean-_ "

"It's okay," he interrupted with a smile. "Really. It's kind of nice, actually."

Rey smiled, and all the air left the room as he took the clothes and sat them on the counter, then wrapped an arm casually around her waist. He bent down and nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck, acting as though it was totally normal behavior for them even though it had Rey's heart beating a mile a minute.

She cleared her throat, trying to focus through the feeling of him kissing at her neck, and said, "I have towels and shower stuff if you wanted." Then she turned a bit red as she dared to add, "Pity these shower stalls aren't big enough for two of us."

His smirk grew into a wolfish smile as he hummed and said, "As much as I love that idea, Uncle Luke would be pissed."

"Oh, right," Rey laughed, remembering where they were. "Luke would  _murder_  us."

"Probably," Ben nodded. He chuckled and shook his head, taking one of the towels from Rey as he claimed a shower stall. She heard the water start as he spoke up, "For the record, sweetheart, if we weren't in the Dojang, I wouldn't care  _how_  small the showers are. I'm sure we could figure out a way to make it work."

Rey giggled, and said, "Good to know."

* * *

Ben realized, not ten seconds after he heard her shower start, that Rey was going to drive him insane. She'd picked the stall next to him, and  _of course_  he should have realized that she'd be showering as well, and...well, showers  _did_  tend to involve getting naked, and now all he could think of was the fact that there was a thin wall separating them.

Well, a wall, and a deep sense of respect for the Dojang. Or possibly, it was a fear of Master Luke. Either way, it wasn't happening, and Ben reminded himself of that for the hundredth time as he heard Rey moan under the hot water.

 _Holy shit._  Was she doing that on purpose?

Ben took a deep breath and willed his body to  _calm the fuck down_ , as he finished washing blood off him. At that point, he wasn't even sure if the blood was his, or someone else's, but five minutes (and a lot of frustratingly torturous noises from Rey's stall) later, he finally turned off the water and reached for the towel he'd hung up.

"Hey," she called out, "There's a first aid kit in my locker if you want to grab it. I'll be out in a minute."

"Good idea," he agreed, drying off and pulling on the sweatpants and t-shirt he'd been missing for nearly a year. He  _really_  should have realized where they'd gone, and as he looked down at them, he couldn't help but wonder how often she'd worn them. Ben had never really done the  _relationship_  thing, and he'd sort of rolled his eyes at seeing Phasma and Hux steal each other's stuff but...he kind of got it now.

It was heartwarming. Comforting, even.

Ben found the surprisingly well-stocked first aid kit, and started laying helpful items, like gauze and medical tape, out on the counter when Rey stepped out of her stall wrapped in an oversized towel, tied up around her chest.

That was probably when his heart stopped, because for some reason, that was the moment he realized that he was going to get to  _date_  this girl. He was going to get to hug her and kiss her, take her home and-

He stopped that train of thought before it led him somewhere dangerous, because they really  _couldn't_  do anything in the Dojang.

But,  _oh_ , Rey was gorgeous, and Ben couldn't help but wonder how it'd taken him so long to figure it out. He looked carefully at her, noticing her bright eyes, and the endearing light smattering of freckles that went across her nose and cheeks. His glance may have lingered on her lips just a moment too long to be subtle, but it's not like he was trying to hide it anymore.

Sure, he'd thought women were attractive before. That happened all the time. But this... _this_ was different. It's like the world stopped spinning and time froze whenever he looked at her and he'd spent so long trying not to put the words to that feeling, but the truth was, he'd fallen in love with the infuriating, stubborn,  _stunning_ girl who looked at him like he was a sky full of stars.

Rey smiled at him, and the room lit up as she let out a breathy laugh, "See something you like?'

_Yes._

He cleared his throat and blushed, looking away, "Sorry. C'mon, we should get patched up."

"Ah, my favorite," she crooned. "Wounded warrior trope?  _Perfect._ "

Ben rolled his eyes as he leaned back against the counter, and watched her curiously as she walked over and carefully reached up to trace the scar that went down his face. He winced, "Sorry, I know it's awful-"

"Not at all," Rey interrupted softly. "Don't get me wrong, I  _hate_  Snoke for the fact that he did this to you, but…" she shrugged, "The scar itself? Makes you look all dangerous." She winked, and added, "It's kinda hot."

Ben didn't really know how to respond to that in a way that wouldn't increase the redness on his cheeks, so instead, he took her by the waist and turned them so she was against the counter, then lifted her up to sit on it, and stood between her legs.

"You're in worse shape than I am after that fight," he explained, "I saw that elbow strike to your back." He gestured for her to turn her torso a bit so he could inspect the area near her shoulder blade, "Yeah, that's already bruising.  _Shit._  Sorry I wasn't there to help you out with that guy."

"I'm pretty sure you were busy," she scoffed. "Weren't you fighting two of them at that point?"

He shrugged and frowned at the other bruises he was noticing on her. "Did you take any hits to your torso? Where does it hurt?"

"Everywhere," Rey groaned.

"Okay," Ben nodded, "tell me if anything I do hurts a lot more than it already does, okay?"

His hands came to her hips, and he started carefully moving his hands up the sides of her torso, gently pressing at her ribs. He assumed Rey would have been in considerable pain if one was broken, but it was worth checking.

Her breath caught, and he froze, glancing up at her, his eyes wide, "Crap, I'm  _so_  sorry. Did that hurt?"

"Uh, nope," she blinked. "Just sore. Probably more bruises."

"Oh. Right," he nodded slowly. His hands slid up, feeling through the towel, and they stopped just before reaching her chest, at which point he let out a shaky breath, dropping them back to her hips.

Without his brain's permission, one of his hands left her hip and raised up to gently tuck a stray lock back behind her ear. Ben noticed one of the bruises he'd left on her and winced again. "Sorry about that. I probably should have picked a less-obvious spot."

"It's fine," she said softly, leaning into his hand, "I didn't mind."

Ben smiled softly and cupped her cheek. It took him a moment to realize he was just staring into her eyes while gently rubbing the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone.

 _Focus_.

"We- Uh." He took another deep breath. "We need to go talk with Luke. He's waiting for us."

Rey studied him curiously. "Okay, sure. Let's go talk to him. I should get some clothes on anyway. And then..." she paused, and took his hand gently, caressing her thumb over his palm. "Ben," she whispered, "I thought you were going to die tonight. I- I just-"

She didn't have to finish her sentence for him to know what she was trying to say. He nodded, and smiled softly, taking her face in his hands, and whispered, "It's okay, we all made it out okay. And hey, I love you. I'm sorry I didn't say it like this the first time."

Ben leaned in captured her in a soft, caressing kiss. Her lips started moving gently over his in a rhythm that suggested they'd already memorized each others lips, and her hands bunched in the front of the t-shirt he wore, gripping tightly, as if she was afraid he'd leave.

 _As if_ he could ever leave her.

He pulled away a minute later, and rested his forehead against hers.

"I love you too, Ben," she answered breathlessly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Severed ties, an offer, and a request.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> Attack: I’m just here to bask in the happy fact that the slowburn is fucking done. DONE. *Grumbles* _270K words before a damned kiss…_
> 
> Onfire: So. Much. Stuff. Honestly, I'm a little brain dead. So many call backs to things we'd set up chapters ago. So many lines we just needed to include. My head is spinning. I hope you all had as much fun following along this chapter as we did writing it. This kicks off Act 3 with a bang.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	40. Black Belt, Second Stripe, Part VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, earning the rating for something other than violence. Also, we may take about a week before posting chapter 41, because we're replanning a good portion of the third act, and we'd like to wrap up a few other projects. As always, we're available on Tumblr for ETAs!
> 
> ***Mom, if you're reading, _this_ would be a chapter to skip.***
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


It was bizarre, being back in the Dojang after everything that had happened.

They stuck to Luke's office for the debrief, though Rey was keenly aware that earlier that evening she and Luke had been having an entirely different conversation about the man sitting not even two feet away from them both. The crawl of the analog clock Luke kept in his office ticked its way to dawn, heedless of the people around it. It was the only noise in the building beyond the careful enunciation with which both of them spoke.

Rey fought the urge to close her eyes and doze off. The sleeping crawl she'd been dutifully avoiding all night was pushing against her mental defenses, and for some reason Luke's guest chair, which had always been wobbly and stiff, suddenly seemed lush and extravagantly comfortable. She wasn't anywhere close to falling asleep, but after the shower her exhaustion was catching up to her.

She did a double-take when she saw the time. It hadn't even been eight hours since she'd last been there.

They tried to keep things simple and stuck to the main points as they spoke, but even that was a fairly intricate story, and it didn't help that Luke occasionally stopped them and asked them to clarify or explain things more in depth. They'd managed to skirt around the subject of their relationship, but it was still a near thing.

After an hour's of talking and explaining, Rey gratefully grabbed the bottle of water that Luke offered. Ben hadn't said much at first, but he'd helped where he could, though his explanations had been even more brief than hers. When it came to what happened when Snoke lined them up, he handled the narration from there.

When they finally finished, Luke sat quietly at his desk, drumming his fingers, considering Rey ever so carefully.

"Am I to understand," he said at last, "that after all I've taught you, after everything we've worked on," his tone sharpened, and he stood slowly, suddenly towering over her, "you willingly went to what you knew to be an illegal, underground fight, and you participated? Not only once, but twice?"

He started pacing behind the desk with the kind of discontent Rey imagined could only come from a runaway train. Scowling, he turned to them, somehow more frazzled now than he'd been when everything had been on fire. She kept mute, both to let him ride this fresh new torrent out, and because she knew he wasn't actually looking for an answer yet.

"Why, Rey?" he asked, voice low and ominous in a way it could never be if he'd raised it. He put slammed both hands on the desk. "Why the hell didn't you tell anyone? Why not tell Leia, Ben's  _mother_ , about anything? Why not Amilyn? I know for a fact you still know how to reach out to her. Hell, I would have been happy if you'd have let  _Maz_  know."

There was a small exhale as he slumped back into his chair. "...why not tell me?"

Rey gulped, resisted the urge to look down, and started fidgeting with her fingers. "I'm sorry, sir."

Luke waved her apology away carelessly. "I appreciate the apology, Rey, but I still want to know why."

She winced, and found she couldn't say anything.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked ten years older than he had earlier that night. "Do either of you have any idea how badly this could have gone?" he asked rhetorically.

Rey sat up straight, starting to get a little sick of the third degree. "Of course I-"

"And you roped Poe and the others into this mess, too?" he interrupted. He glared over at Rey, "Let me take a guess here, he didn't break his arm falling down the stairs like he said he did."

"No," Ben spoke up, looking penitent and unfairly calm, "I did that."

Luke inhaled sharply, before he nodded as if confirming something. "Thought so."

The two of them waited for the inevitable railroading he was sure to engage in, but after a few seconds of nothing they both looked at each other and then him. Luke had sat back in his chair and had his arms crossed and eyes closed, as if in deep thought. When he opened them he found Rey at least partly gaping like a fish at him. "What? I'm old, not stupid. Rumors have been flying around for a while now. I'd dismissed them because  _surely_  my students - my well-trained, honest, hardworking students - wouldn't engage in illicit activity like that."

"It was the only thing we could think to do," Rey muttered somewhat resentful. The was a ball of molten plutonium irradiating her core with guilt and she didn't like it. "Snoke would have seen through anything else."

"Did you even consider talking about this to anyone not in the Falcon tonight?" he turned it around on her. "What were you even thinking?"

"I was  _thinking_  someone had to put a stop to it!" Rey snapped. "You don't know what that man was doing to Ben, and-"

Ben's hand fell on her shoulder, stopping her from escalating into a full-blown rant. "Rey, I appreciate what you're doing, but I wasn't blameless either," he said this with the calm, cool, demeanor she'd once admired in him so long ago. "My mas-" he grit his teeth and shook his head, before continuing "- _Snoke_  was involved in a lot, and I won't say he didn't influence me, but the decisions I made were my own."

Neither of them missed how he caught himself in saying that old monster's name. Both Luke and Rey traded a glance without Ben's notice and, after a second's hesitation, nodded. It had been made imminently clear early in the conversation that Ben was uncomfortable just being there, but it took a supreme effort of will to not react to the things that had already been said.

"You knew I was going to head there tomorrow, Rey," Luke said at last, and there it was, cards on the table, "Was that why you chose to go tonight? Was that why you didn't tell me anything beforehand? Did you seriously think I would fight Ben?"

Rey hesitated.

"...I see."

The discomfiting coil wrapped around her heart once more. She could have chosen to lie, but Luke had already been lied to enough by both of them.

"Why were you the one in the ring then Rey?" he said instead, plowing forward as if she hadn't just grabbed the proverbial masher and put it to his heart. "I understand that things got complicated the first time you were there, and that Poe got injured, so why  _you_  this time?"

Rey'd thought they'd actually managed to dodge that explanation. "It had to be me, sir."

"Why you?" Luke implored, looking grayer by the minute. "Please, explain to me how a nineteen year old finds herself participating in an illegal underground fight club, facing off against a man twice her size who we both know had every advantage possible?"

Maybe it was the time of night and he was getting a little delirious after everything, but Ben chose that time to mumble, "Not every advantage," in a tone of voice that definitely should have been under his breath.

There were thorn bushes duller than the look Luke shot him before turning back to her. Some papers drifted to the floor from all his ruffling, but he didn't look down. "Do you have any idea how badly Ben could have hurt you? I know the man's a psychopath, but Snoke has been training him to be a Master! I  _know_  you aren't that stupid!"

"Oh, I don't think he intended to  _hurt_  me," she snorted, unable to help herself.

Whatever spell that allowed Ben to remain so calm was suddenly broken. His eyes widened as he caught her tone and the implication in her words. "Could you maybe try taking this a bit more seriously?"

The look she shot him was pitiless. She wondered if she could somehow psychically remind him of the hickey he left on her neck, and how serious she'd been when she literally jumped off a wall into his arms.

He looked to Luke and said earnestly, "Luke, I  _never_  would have hurt her. I was trying to get her to leave. She never should have been there in the first place."

Luke raised an eyebrow, his eyes boring through Ben as if he was trying to read his mind. Eventually, he audibly groaned and grumbled while rubbing his temples, "Of all the- well, at least  _one_  of you has some sense."

Rey got the impression he was surprised at who he was talking about with that sentence.

"Uh,  _excuse_ you," she scoffed. "I was only there to get Ben to stop fighting. It's not like I just woke up this morning and said  _gosh, you know what would be just super fun? Getting my ass handed to me in a stupid fight club!"_

"So you thought the best way to get Ben to stop fighting was to, what, fight him?" Luke asked, and looked to Ben, who'd suddenly found something riveting on his cuticles. "That makes a lot of sense," he finished sarcastically.

Much to Rey's relief, Ben chimed in, "Well, actually, she made me a deal."

"A deal." Luke had the look of a man waiting for the punchline only to realize there was none. "Alright, I'll bite. What was in this deal?"

"If I won, she'd never come back there again," Ben intoned. He probably meant for it to sound serious, but the effect was ruined by Rey snorting disdainfully.

"I can't believe you actually fell for that," she said, shaking her head disbelievingly.

"And if she won?" By the unimpressed and even growing curl of his lips, Rey could see Luke was starting to fight off a laugh. Where that laugh was coming from she didn't know, but she wanted some of it for herself. The night had been crazy so far.

"If she won, I'd stop fighting."

Luke laughter turned into a scoff midway. "Rey, I mean no offense. I have every faith in your abilities, but how exactly did you expect to beat Ben? Actually," he paused, and asked curiously, "...how  _did_  you beat him?"

Suddenly neither of them had an immediate response. At least not one they wanted to give Luke. They shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

After a moment Ben cleared his throat, answering vaguely, "I'm not sure that matters."

Luke's eyes narrowed, suddenly very much shifting into Uncle Luke within the context of this conversation. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's just not really relevant," Rey said quickly.

"I'm starting to get the feeling that it's  _very_  relevant," Luke said seriously. "What aren't you two telling me?"

Ben and Rey exchanged a look that only resulted in the two of them blushing like a pair of middle school crushes. Eventually it was Ben who shrugged and said, "He's going to find out eventually anyway. Better he hears it from us. Keeping everything a secret probably isn't the best idea."

What the  _hell,_  where was all this forthrightness months ago?!

"Oh god," she groaned, "Luke, look, I really don't think you want to-"

Ben interrupted her, blurting out, "She kissed me."

A pin wouldn't have made much noise in the suddenly still office, but only because of the rapid-fire machine-gun rate of Rey's heart alternating between the bottom of her stomach and practically choking her with its presence.

"She...kissed you." Luke repeated, as if the sentence were some strange foreign word.  _Befuddlement_  was close but not quite exact.

"Then she kicked me in the balls while I was distracted."

She dropped her head into her hands and muttered, "Dammit Ben, did you really have to tell him?" She looked up and decided fair was fair when she said, "For the record, you kissed me back, and you  _know_  it."

Ben's look was simultaneously cocky and offbeat, and Rey wondered why he was allowed such an expressive face in addition to everything else he had going on. "Sure, let's be fully honest about it, then," he drawled, "I guess if you really want to tell him the truth, you should tell him all about how your plan to beat me revolved around heavily suggestive... _uh,_  flirting." He waited a moment to let that sink in. "No actual fighting. Just flirting. I know I've been gone a while, but I'm pretty sure Luke doesn't teach  _that_  technique."

"Well it  _worked_ ," she said sweetly.

Ben chuckled, and said, "Uh, yeah, sweetheart, when a beautiful woman is basically topless and  _offers to help me work on my stamina_  in the middle of a fight and then jumps on me and shoves her tongue down my throat, I get kinda distracted. What a shock."

"Excuse me!" Rey jeered. "I was wearing a sports bra, and I seem to recall that you  _also_ didn't have a shirt on!"

Ben's smile fell momentarily, eyes trailing to the bruised and beaten abdomen hidden under his clothes, before he looked up and smirked. "Don't think I didn't notice the staring."

Rey's retort died in her throat when a new sound invaded her ears. It was one she'd already heard that night. She'd leapt and believed in that noise like it was their only lifeline earlier, and she could scarcely believe she was hearing it again so soon afterwards.

Quiet chuckling which had started as just a chuff of air and a shake of his chest built up energy and momentum and soon enough the relative quiet of the office was shattered by the rolling belly laugh of a man in his fifties as both she and Ben looked up in horror at the man they'd forgotten was listening.

"This is ridiculous," Luke laughed, shaking his head. "Really, this is something else. No wonder I'm going gray!" he said, with a touch of hysteria added. "It's Han and Leia all over again! Except you are both somehow even worse at communicating." Then he huffed and muttered, "No wonder you pissed Snoke off. Okay, okay, I get the picture.  _Please_  don't tell me more. Maybe pick up the story  _after_  the fight."

Rey pursed her lips thinking of the locker room and said carefully, "You probably don't want to hear much about that part either."

Luke groaned. "Why don't you idiots just tell me what I need to know. And for my own sanity, leave  _out_  the parts that'll make me want to deafen myself."

He was taking the whole thing surprisingly well. Rey had been expecting a huge thundering demand for why they hell the two of them were even getting caught up in each other's life like this, and now that she hadn't, she was feeling strangely cheated.

When Ben spoke, it was with reserve once more, and Rey reached over and grabbed his knee in support. "My ma- goddammit -  _Snoke_  didn't like how the fight ended. I never got close enough to really understand everything, but I know enough to know that everyone there knew him somehow. They...respected him."

It seemed to gall Ben to even utter those last two words. Rey knew that there were some things that would take a while to get past and she was only now starting to truly realize just how deep the training and instinct went. Exactly what happened in those three years since Ben left?

Luke nodded as if this wasn't news to him. "So the fight didn't end to his liking," Luke thought out loud before shaking his head. "No, knowing you I'd bet it ended in such a way as to be a complete loss for the house, somehow."

"He wanted me to hurt Rey, Uncle Luke," Ben said quietly, and there was acid in his voice, "If it had been anyone else..."

Rey thought of Poe, and she thought of the men they'd dispatched that night. She thought of Ben going above and beyond his necessary call of duty.

She saw Luke breathe heavily. "I'm guessing that's why you were lined up to die when we got there."

Ben seemed to realized something else in what Luke had said. "Wait, if you were there..."

"I heard it all, son," Luke nodded gravely. "As soon as we walked in. Every word, every slur, every shout in your soul."

Luke was strangely poignant at the oddest of times, Rey couldn't help but notice.

Ben seemed to think about this for a moment. "That...makes this easier then." He licked his lips and Rey didn't miss the way he hunched up, as if there were a collar around his neck choking him and his will back to obedience. "I've officially severed ties with my mast- " he paused to take a breath and she saw him focus on his words with excruciating difficulty. "I've officially several ties with Alistair Snoke."

"That's a nice way of saying to you told him fuck off. Yeah, don't think I didn't hear that part either," Luke snorted, and shook his head, "Goddamned Solos. I swear, you idiots aren't capable of keeping an even head." He sighed. "Well, I don't think I need to tell you two that we've all made one hell of an enemy."

"Wait, he's still  _alive_?" The thought beggared the imagination like nothing else that night. Snoke had been in the surveyor's box when they left. Surely he couldn't have escaped and gotten out in time.

"Leia called while you were in the shower," Luke said, as if that made any sense, "She's making sure we don't get our asses landed in a cell. The fire's still going, but so far, no one's missing or unaccounted for."

The look he gave Rey probably would have been more meaningful if she hadn't been running on five hours of sleep in what had quickly turned out to be the longest day of her life, and entering the twentieth hour of her mad dash to keep her sanity too. It was probably horrible of her, but Luke didn't seem to mind her apathy all that much at the moment.

Luke groaned as he seemed to realize something. "Dammit, Rey. Were you going to attack Snoke this evening?"

She hadn't been planning on it, but it would have been a great late-birthday present to her on behalf of the universe. "If he'd come out of his stupid little box? Definitely. Is that really surprising?" she said dryly.

"No," Luke sighed, and didn't seem surprised at all. "No, it isn't. I really wasn't kidding about the gray hair."

"She was also about to go after a few guys with bats once we got outside." Ben looked over at her and said, "I think you need to work on your anger issues."

Luke snorted, said something about needing a drink after this, and then couldn't resist adding his two cents when he said to seemingly no one, "Well, at least he's not blind."

Rey turned to Ben, raising an eyebrow. "Really?" she drawled, " _Really?_  You're saying that  _I_  need to work on my anger issues?"

She'd wondered which one of the two of them was the kettle and which was the pot, because she was fairly sure she'd made comparisons between the two of them enough that night to actually wing the guess either way.

"Look, I understand, but going after him," his breath hitched as he nearly said ' _my master ,_  "or guys with bats is a good way to end up in the hospital, and I'm sorry, but I'm not going to let that happen to you. I made the right call, whether you agreed with it or not. You're safe and that's what matters. If me holding you back pissed you off, I can accept that."

As angry as she wanted to be, Rey understood where he was coming from, so she nodded, and said quietly, "I'm not pissed off. I…" she sighed, "I understand. I didn't like it, but I understand."

"I still can't believe you guys were the ones who set the building on fire," Luke groaned. "For god's  _sake_ , do you have any idea how much trouble we could all be in?"

Luke glared at Ben for a moment, before saying, "You really are your father's son, you know that, right?" He walked around his desk, and nearly fell into his chair. Then he stared at Ben carefully for a moment and asked, in as tight and controlled a voice he could manage, "So what now?"

Ben looked away shamefacedly for a moment before meeting his stare. "I'm no longer spending time with him."

There was no need to specify who the 'him' was.

Luke nodded. "I can see that," he offered sarcastically, "Generally, burning down a building ruins whatever trust you've built up with the people who were in that building. People are funny like that."

Rey watched this sudden somber moment take place in silence.

Another chord of tension shot through the room. Ben was silent, shifting, twisting his expression as a myriad of emotions riled through at a pace too fast to keep up. "I'd like to come back," he said, in the end, after all other avenues of pursuit were exhausted.

Luke leaned forward and steepled his fingers, looking over them at the young man beside Rey. There was a magnetic feeling to the air, as if she were only on the outer edge of some great magnetic image centered on her boyfriend. "And why should I let you?" Luke said, voice bland and unindicative of his true thoughts.

Bowing his head, Ben looked down, at his hands. At the hands that had done very little except break or destroy so very recently. "You shouldn't," he offered. "I've done some terrible things, sir. I've-"

"I'm aware of them. Not the specifics, but what I've seen was not good." Luke looked so old and so tired, "Oh Ben. Why?"

Whether Luke was asking why he did the things he did, or why he wanted to come back, or even why he left in the first place, Ben didn't answer.

Minutes passed. Quiet, unbroken, and still in a way too much like a cemetery for Rey's comfort. Luke was patient. He could outlast them until morning if he felt like it. He wasn't acting as the Master anymore here though. He was being the Uncle. More importantly, he was being the man who took Ben Solo in when he thought no one else wanted him, so many years ago.

"I suppose it's no secret that I want you back as well," Luke said, after an eternity of silence, "However, while I'm glad you have escaped that man, I can't let someone back for the wrong reasons. It wouldn't be fair to me or to you."

"...I miss it."

Luke came around the desk and leaned against it, in front of them. "Do you, truly?"

Defiance and fire blazed across Ben's expression. "Yes, sir."

"This isn't some attempt to spend more time with Rey?" Luke questioned and then explained, "Just so we're clear, it's not that I disapprove of your relationship. I just...I need to know what your priority is going into this."

Rey wondered what she'd just missed.

"It's not about Rey sir...well, not  _entirely_ ," Ben had the grace to look a little embarrassed at that admittance before he proceeded, "I miss...everything. I miss Taekwondo."

"You've had three years of training with one of the most talented and respected individuals I've ever known, Ben." Luke's voice came out a pleading whisper, "You have been living and breathing martial arts nonstop for months. Years. Why would you want to give that up?"

"That wasn't martial arts," Ben asserted, and the fire tempered iron to forge steel, and he seemed to stand up straighter, "That was something else. Meaningless bloodshed."

"Hmm," Luke seemed to stretch a single sound to last for an excruciatingly long time. "Very well. I can't offer you your old position back without talking further but for now...welcome back."

Ben's eyebrows shot up. "Just like that?"

"Just like that," Luke said with a riant grin. "Seeing and hearing about how you handled the situation this evening…" he shrugged, "It would be on a trial basis, of course. At least for a few promotions."

"You'd let me promote?" Ben's hands seemed to shake in place, and Rey reached across and grabbed one to becalm them. "You- you're not taking my belts?"

The look that crossed Luke's face was one of shock. "Ben,  _no_. Of course not. I know things have been... _difficult_  between us since you left, but," he took a deep breath, "despite everything that's happened, and everything you've done, I'm proud that you left Snoke. I won't lie and say I haven't thought of it but..."

"I-" Ben swallowed hard, "I said so many things. I  _did_  so many-"

Luke interrupted softly by placing a hand on his shoulders, "Someday, Ben, you might have a kid of your own, and you'll figure something out. I never thought it would be true, and I know you aren't my son, but-" he paused, and his eyes met Ben's, "I think of you as my son, though. And when you're a parent, you figure out how to forgive your kid. No matter what they say or do. Maybe that makes me a lesser Master, but I couldn't forgive myself if I didn't accept you back, open arms and all."

Ben blinked, feeling a surprising amount of emotions welling in his chest. "Thank you, Master Luke," he said softly.

"Ah ah," Luke gently rebuked. "Uncle Luke."

"I-" Ben swallowed. "Uncle Luke, then."

Rey was feeling herself start to tear up but she held it in for their sakes. These two stubborn fools were going to be the death of her someday.

"I'm sorry. About everything...I never should have said I wasn't your son." Ben took a deep breath and said, "If things work out, you'll consider promoting me to Master?"

"There are a lot more 'ifs' than that but, put simply, yes," Luke said. "What I've seen tonight is promising, but I'm going to have very high standards for anyone I promote to fourth dan. And..." he cleared his throat, "obviously you would never be allowed to oversee Rey's training, but if things worked out, I'd want you to take more teaching responsibilities here. Again," he said quietly, "a  _lot_  of ifs."

Rey frowned, "Why couldn't he train me?"

The two men seemed to stop and realize she was still in the room.

"Because it would be inappropriate," Luke drawled, rolling his eyes. "You two have made it abundantly clear that there'd be a conflict of interest. If I let Ben be responsible for any of your promotions they could be called into question due to your relationship."

"I understand," Ben nodded, his throat dry. "I'm just surprised you'd let me teach at all."

"There are a lot of if's," Luke repeated, and then hesitated, "And one of the ifs is a requisite."

"What is it?" Ben asked, curiosity piqued. "If it's hours I'm flexible, especially after everything. I'll do all the dirty work and setting up and-"

"Ben." Luke stopped him before he could go further. "I'd like you to see a professional. Therapy."

Despite the suddenness of the request, Rey actually found herself approving of the idea. It was, however, no surprise that Ben seemed to tense up with the maddened, basic terror she'd seen from him earlier at the ring. Suddenly he was a caged animal, confronted with the terrifying predator that was communication and honest and responsibility and she could see the urge to run in the pit and give surge in his eyes briefly and then -

Ben relaxed microscopically. "I understand."

His tone wasn't sullen or beaten. A little more...resigned. It wasn't a ringing endorsement but if Luke had heard even half the stuff Rey had learned from Ben or even half the stuff that she'd learned from what Ben didn't say, then it was a victory in his mind, most likely.

Luke let out a sigh of relief, as if he'd expected Ben to fight him on that request more, and after a moment he said, "You're also welcome to come live with me again, if you can't get your apartment back."

Ben's eyes got wide at that. "Right.  _Shit_. I forgot about that. I- I might have to take you up on that. At least for a while."

With a fond smile, Luke stood up and said, "Well, I've had enough excitement for one night. See you upstairs?" He glanced over at Rey and said, "Kid, maybe you can meet us for lunch at the diner tomorrow, before your shift?"

Rey paused, and realized Ben was staring at her, as if asking a question, searching her eyes for an answer.

She hadn't really considered the idea of them  _not_  going home together that evening, and now that she was presented with the reality, she found she didn't like the idea of splitting away from him so soon after getting him back. Her fingers traced over his hand softly, and she swallowed hard, and gave a soft nod.

"Actually, Uncle Luke," he said quietly, not taking his eyes off hers, "Why don't Rey and I meet you at the diner tomorrow?"

She chanced a look up at Luke, hoping he hadn't realized the implication, or...if he  _did_ , she at least hoped he wouldn't get angry or freaked out by it.

Thankfully he smiled faintly, and nodded. "Okay. Sure. See you two in the morning."

He turned and left the office, and the tension in the room tripled. Or, maybe it was her imagination. Her fingers kept tracing over his hand nervously, because suddenly she realized, despite her bravado in the cage, she wasn't entirely sure what to say now that they were alone, in a pressure-less environment.

"C'mon, sweetheart," he said softly, "Let's get you home. I- I don't have to stay, or...I can stay on the couch, but, I'd at least like to get you home."

"I want you to stay," she whispered. "And not on the couch."

When he didn't respond, Rey took her eyes off the hand on her thigh, and looked up at him, only to see a peaceful awe settling onto his face. He nodded, stood up and held a hand out to her.

She took it, and followed him.

* * *

Despite the sudden rain, things were oddly normal during the short car ride to Rey's apartment building, and it made her wonder if Ben realized what she'd implied when she'd asked him to come home with her. Somehow the confident, filter-less version of herself from the cage was nowhere to be found, and now she was just a bit of a nervous mess, wishing she had the nerve to simply explain exactly what she had in mind.

Realistically, saying  _hey, would you mind having sex with me?_  should have been pretty easy given the sort of things she'd said in the cage, but now…

Now it was real, and a lot more serious. Now they weren't surrounded by an audience whose presence made her words just a little empty, and easy to take back. Not that she wanted to take them back.

Water pitter-pattered against the top of the Falcon as she parked in her usual spot in the building's designated lot, and with a bit of regret, she realized she'd left her umbrella in her apartment.

She glanced over at Ben, and saw in the dim glow of the low interior lights that he was watching her curiously, but she didn't take much time to wonder why. Instead, she opened the car door and climbed out, but just as she was about to begin her dash through the rain to the building's front door, she heard Ben say lowly, "Rey, wait."

He'd stepped out of the car too, and rain was hitting him, starting to form rivulets down his body, soaking through the dark t-shirt she'd finally returned. Rey paused, and for whatever reason, his expression garnered more of her attention than the rain that had started to dampen her own clothes. She wasn't sure why she did it - it was almost as if the part of her brain that controlled her motor functions had started operating without her input - but she walked around the car, and stood in front of him.

Rey looked up, met his eyes, and waited for his words. She wasn't sure what they'd be, but...whatever they were, she could tell they were important. Worth weathering the rain for.

She shivered as he stared down at her, and worked his lips together before saying, just loudly enough to be heard over the rain that was falling, "What do you want, Rey?" She drew in a quick breath as he continued, "You know I can go back to Luke's, right? I don't... _expect_  anything. But I'd like to know what you want, starlight. I think we should be on the same page before we go inside."

Despite her previous experiences with it, Rey had found herself warming up to the idea of rain. There was something soothing about it, and something refreshing, so she didn't mind feeling it soak through her hair, or the clothes she'd put on after her shower in the locker room. She bit her lip nervously at his question, and noticed his expression soften.

Then she jumped off the deep end, and answered honestly, "You. I want  _you."_

Ben's hand came up to cup the side of her face, and he bent down just far enough to press his lips to her forehead, murmuring the words, "Are you sure, sweetheart?"

Rain hit the top of her her head, tracing paths down her body - paths she realized she wanted either his lips or hands to follow, and in a moment of bravery, she lifted up on her toes and answered his question with a soft, tentative kiss. Ben didn't seem surprised - either that, or he acted instinctively, because there was no hesitation as the hand that cupped her face held her closely, while his other hand came around to her lower back, pulling her against him as their mouths continued to move together slowly.

They'd only shared a handful of kisses so far - barely a fraction of all the ones Rey had planned for them. Burning, fiery, passionate kisses, and sweet, tender kisses...but never ones that they both knew were leading somewhere else. Not until now. Ben held her as if he'd never let her go. Her hands pressed up against his chest, and she could have sworn she felt his heart hammering in time with hers.

A few moments later, Ben broke away, his lips just slightly swollen, and wet from either her, or the rain, and he continued to stare down at her as if he wasn't even sure she was real. Then, without warning, his warm touch left her face, and both his hands splayed across her bottom, lifting her with ease. Rey instinctively wrapped her legs around his hips, her arms around his shoulders, and heard him shut the Falcon's passenger door before she felt him walked them toward the building.

Or, at least Rey assumed that's where they were headed. She was too busy moaning into his mouth to take much notice. After an indeterminate amount of steps, Ben broke the kiss to fish the keys out of her pocket, and upon finding them, supported her against him with a single arm under her hips while he got the door open.

Frustrated that they'd stopped kissing, Rey's lips moved to his jaw, trailing along his jawline, and then down his neck. She slowed for a moment to suck at his pulse-point, and felt his grip on her tighten at that. Wondering about what his reaction would be, she licked the spot just before biting down, and reveled in the growl that burst from his lips.

She'd been too distracted to realize he'd gotten them to her apartment door, and with more concentration that Rey had in that moment, he'd managed to unlock it. Within seconds, the door shut behind her, and she found herself being walked in the direction of her own bedroom.

Or possibly the couch?

At that point, she really couldn't have cared less where they ended up. He'd nearly sacrificed himself for them (though, that was certainly something they needed to discuss when they weren't busy trying to consume each other), and there had been more than one point in the evening when she'd been truly terrified that one or both of them wouldn't walk out alive. The idea of losing him without ever getting to be with him - without ever getting to feel him against her...it was unimaginable.

Rey didn't care what they needed to sit down and discuss. She didn't care that Ben probably wouldn't be ready to rush into a relationship, despite his happiness at being called her boyfriend. She didn't care that she should probably have checked on their friends as soon as they'd left the Dojang, and she didn't care that they'd gotten soaked to the bone in the rain, or that she had no idea whether or not there where any condoms in the apartment, or that he probably hadn't even locked the door behind them.

All she cared about was Ben, and when it came to him, she didn't just  _care_. She  _loved,_  and it was a burning, impulsive, glorious thing that demanded compulsive worshipping and fulfilment, and Rey was all too happy to oblige.

When Ben reached the bed in her still-dark bedroom, he let her fall back onto it, her damp hair splaying out onto the white blanket underneath her, and he rested a knee on the edge of her mattress, following her down onto the soft surface.

Rey shivered again as she felt his hands glide from her hips down to her knees and then back up - touching her as if he was terrified she'd disappear on him. As if he still couldn't quite believe she wasn't a figment of his lonely dreams.

His fingers dipped under the waistband of the shorts she wore, and just before pulling at them, he hesitated, and glanced back up at her, whispering, "You're sure?"

She nodded without a second thought, and lifted her hips to help him tug them down her legs. He tossed the shorts somewhere on the floor, then pulled off his own shirt, practically dripping from the rain, and Rey propped herself on up on her elbows so she could take in the now-familiar, and always enjoyable view of Ben shirtless. She swallowed hard as a flash of lightning from outside lit up the room for mere seconds, if that, showing that Ben had moved to kneel in front of her.

Kisses - as light as a misting rain - reached up and along the inside of her leg and she sucked in a breath as his mouth landed on the cotton that still covered the apex of her thighs. Her pulse picked up quickly as she felt his breath against the skin of her belly, traveling across to her hip.

Ben's lips froze at a set of scars he'd never had the chance to notice, and when he looked up at her with worried, questioning eyes, she explained softly, "run in with Plutt - it was a long time ago," knowing that'd be enough of an explanation.

She grimaced, and moved a hand to cover the area, but he stopped her, saying gently, "Don't. Don't hide. Not from me." Her eyes met his, and she realized she didn't see the anger she'd expected to see cross his face. Instead, he returned to the spot slowly, and placed kisses over the marks.

"Beautiful," he whispered. "Every bruise, every scar. Every freckle." Rey's mouth fell open as she was overcome by a tidal wave of feeling after he added, tattooing the words into her skin with his lips, "When I say  _I love you_ , I mean all of you, Rey."

She smiled softly, but her heart stuttered as he gently tugged at the bit of cotton that still covered her lower half. The last bit slid off easily, and she sat up to pull the sports bra off over her head, suddenly thankful that she hadn't worn one of the ones that was difficult to get off.

And all at once, she was completely bare in front of him, heart pounding as she watched him take in the view. After a moment, his eyes locked on hers as he cleared his throat and whispered, "I know I call you starlight, but  _Rey_. You're so beautiful you'd make even the stars jealous."

Before she could respond, his hand went to her abdomen, pushing her gently until she was laying back, propped up on her elbows again. Rey watched curiously as he gripped her knees, sliding them just a bit further apart, and began kissing up the inside of her thigh again. His dark hair was a charming, damp, disheveled mess, and as his nearly-black eyes peered up at her, her breath caught, and she nodded her assent as she closed her eyes and rested back until her head hit the mattress.

Rey knew what he planned to do, but she still almost jumped as she felt his mouth on her, licking up from her core to her clit. She let out a long exhale as he repeated the slow stroke a few times, and gave a low moan when his mouth covered her, sucking at her gently. With his hands still on her thighs, he pulled back just far enough to say, "Tell me if there's anything I do that you don't like, okay?"

She didn't have a chance to answer him that she liked  _everything_  he'd been doing, because his mouth was back on her in an instant, his tongue sliding languidly against her, moving back up to her clit, swirling it in patterns she couldn't track, until her breathing became heavy.

A finger considerably larger than her own entered her slowly, curling up inside her, massaging her right where she needed it, and Rey nearly saw stars. Warmth spread throughout her body as he continued to mouth against her, his tongue still moving in lazy patterns in time with his finger, and she recognized pressure building in her body, leisurely pushing her toward a breaking point.

"Ben," she panted, her hands reaching down to tangle in his hair, "Ben, I'm going to-"

Rey's own moan interrupted her words as he added another finger, and ever-so-slightly sped up his movements, ripping a cry from her lips as an orgasm spread through her body. Her back arched as he continued to work her through the overwhelming feeling. She came down after a few moments, and almost wanted to sob at the feeling of him still kissing and licking at her. It was  _incredible_ , but too much - far too much.

Rey told him that as she gasped, unable to stop her hips from lifting as he continued to press his mouth to her. "Ben,"she groaned, "Ben, stop."

He pulled away, and sat back on his heels, catching his breath before kissing the inside of her knee, and after a moment of consideration, he stood, and climbed over her, smiling down at her just before kissing her deeply, nipping carefully at her lips. Rey wrapped her arms around him, feeling the planes of his back as his mouth moved down her neck, covering her in a countless amount of kisses before she finally whispered, " _Please._ "

It didn't take any other words for him to understand what she wanted, so he tucked an arm under her, around her waist, and pulled them up toward the head of her bed. Ben rolled over and sat upright, his back against her pillows and his legs out straight on the bed in front of him, and he tugged her into his lap, using a hand at the back of her head to hold her face to his as he met her for an unhurried kiss.

Rey straddled his lap, and was suddenly reminded that he was still in sweatpants. She reached down to pull at them until he let out a chuckle, and murmured against her lips, "Alright, alright, I'll get them." She lifted off him just long enough so he could lift his hips and pull them off, dropping them on the floor to the side of her bed.

When he pulled her back into his arms, her eyes trailed down his body, snapping back up to his eyes quickly as she blanched, and then turned her head, muttering, "Guess that answers  _that_  question."

He really  _was_  big everywhere.

After a moment, Ben realized what she meant and chortled at her reaction. "Well," he snorted, "that's a nice ego boost."

"Oh shut up," she griped playfully, smacking his chest lightly, " _Men_."

He laughed again, and shook his head before wrapping an arm around her waist, holding her tightly to him, and the air between them changed in an instant.

Rey rested one arm on his shoulder, and lifted her other hand to caress the scar that ran down his face. She met his eyes, whispering, "Tell me you're mine, Ben. Tell me you won't leave again."

"Yeah, Rey," he said, looking at her with wide eyes. He tucked a lock of damp hair behind her ear as he swallowed hard. "I'm yours. All yours. I'm not going anywhere, I promise."

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as Rey leaned in against his chest and crushed her lips to his, pouring all the love she could into the movement. She felt his hand between them, maneuvering himself toward her entrance, and she pulled out of the kiss, saying quietly, "Wait. I- I should have told you, but I didn't want to freak you out. I know some people make such a big deal out of it, but they really shouldn't, but-"

"You haven't done this before, have you sweetheart?" he interrupted softly.

Rey blinked. "Uh, no, not exactly."

"Not  _exactly?"_  he asked curiously, with a hint of amusement.

She blushed, and admitted quietly, pressing her forehead to his, "No, I've never done any of this."

Ben smiled, and drew her closer so he could kiss her again. "That doesn't freak me out," he rumbled against her lips, "Actually, I kind of assumed. Are you sure you want to? There's no rush, you kn-."

"Relax. I want this," she murmured.

"Okay," he nodded, kissing along her jaw, "Do you have a condom?"

"I'm on the pill," Rey answered, biting her lip.

"Oh." Ben pulled back and stared at her for a moment.

She hesitated, and said slowly, "I-is that okay?"

"With you? Yeah- yeah, of course," he shook his head, "I've just always used one. But, with you? Of course it's okay."

For some reason, Rey had always thought she'd be nervous, but all of a sudden, that seemed so strange to her, because  _how_  could she ever be nervous in Ben's arms? She raised herself up a bit further on her knees, and let her face drop to the crook of his neck as he nudged against her entrance, and pushed into her slowly.

She let out a breath against his skin, and she could feel his heartbeat against her chest as she clung to him, trying to control her breathing as she lowered herself down onto him. It didn't hurt, exactly. It burned, and stretched  _oh_  so slowly, and she noticed a strange sort of fullness that knocked the air out of her lungs as she adjusted to it. She lifted her head and nuzzled her nose into the side of his face, encouraging him to keep going, because she knew he wasn't fully inside her. Part of her wasn't even sure he'd fit, but-

Rey was just about to urge him on when he finally lifted his hips and slid all the way in, and she breathed out, " _Oh."_

"Are you okay?" he asked, leaning back a bit to look at her, concern in his eyes.

"Yeah," she whispered, catching her breath, "Yeah, I'm good." Then she paused, and smiled, rubbing her nose against his as she said, "I love you."

Ben took her face in his hands and kissed her fully as she rocked her hips against his experimentally, earning a groan from his lips.

After a moment, he rested his forehead against hers, and said, "Rey, I'll love you as long as the stars shine."

Rey hummed, and ran her fingers through his hair as she rolled her hips again, and his hands flew to her hips to help her move, lifting her up and pressing her back down onto him.

"Wait, this feels incredible, but...how flexible are you?" he asked, just before sucking one of her breasts into his mouth.

She whimpered at the feeling, and asked breathily, "Why?'

"Because I want to make you come again, and it'll be better if you lay back. If I put a pillow behind you, do you think you could lay back and keep your knees bent under you? It'll feel better."

"How could this  _possibly_  feel better?" she moaned.

Ben chuckled lowly, and said, "Trust me, sweetheart."

What he was suggesting was actually a nice thigh-stretch she used regularly, so she stilled her hips and reached over to grab a pillow. He groaned as she came all the way off him, and Rey spread her knees a bit before bending back, laying against the pillow she'd placed behind her on top of his outstretched legs.

"Fuck, Rey," he breathed, "that...is one  _hell_  of a view."

He put a hand at either knee and lifted her further into his lap, sinking back into her, and in the new position they were in he pressed up against the same spot he'd reached with his fingers. She shuddered as he bent over her torso, lips wrapping around and sucking at one of her nipples while her hands buried themselves in his hair and traced down his face and over his shoulders, always mindful of the bruises the evening had left him with.

"Fuck," he cursed under his breath, "you're even tighter like this."

Rey watched him take a deep breath before continuing. His lips and tongue proceeded to lave tenderly at her breast while his hips worked at a lazy pace against hers, and she groaned as a finger started tracing slick paths around her clit. She lost herself in the sensations, and sighed, " _Ben_ , that feels-" she stopped to let out a moan, and shuddered the words, " _so_  good."

Everything he was doing intensified at her words. He moved to her other breast and sucked harder, seeming to revel in the fact that the position put her at his mercy, and his hips bucked up into her just a bit faster, and his fingers started sliding directly over her nub, and without warning, she keened, quivering as she was pushed quickly over the edge - her heart, body, and soul bursting into a million stars as she chanted his name.

" _Rey,"_  he groaned against her chest, wrapping his arms around waist her tightly to pull their bodies impossibly close. Her breathing stuttered as she felt him pulse inside her, emptying himself as he panted.

They stayed like that, him bent over her with his head on her chest, and arms around her - her arms holding tightly around his shoulders - for what felt like hours, until finally he sat up, pulling her with him until she was back to her original position, straddling him as his back pressed into the pillows.

Rey rested against him and curled her head up under his chin as she listened to his heart pound.

"I love you," he rumbled, the sound reverberating through his chest as she sighed, and closed her eyes, repeating the words back. Then he whispered, "I was scared tonight, too, you know. I thought, if you ever showed up at that place again, that he'd have you killed. I- I thought-"

His breath caught, and Rey raised her head to see a few tears streaming down his face. They matched the ones that were leaving her own eyes.

"If I ever lost you, Rey, it'd be like losing every bit of light. Everything good in me - everything good in the world," he said quietly, "It'd be gone, and I'd be alone."

She understood, but she didn't know how to respond, so she met his lips in a deep kiss. When she finally pulled back and nestled back against his chest, she murmured, "You're not alone, Ben."

They were the same words he'd said to her so many years earlier, and now, as they rested in each others arms, hearts beating in time together, they meant even more than they had the first time they'd been spoken.

"Neither are you, starlight."

* * *

The first thing Rey noticed when she opened her eyes was the window she faced, and she saw mid-morning sun stream in through dark grey curtains that hadn't been fully closed.

As per her usual routine, she was about to roll over and check the time on her old-fashioned alarm clock Luke had given her as a  _congrats on your first apartment_  present.

Except...rolling over was most certainly not an option, because-  _oh_.

Rey took a deep, calming breath and recalled the events of the night before, her heart warming at the memory. It took only a moment to realize she'd been woken up by the movement of two large arms that were wrapped around her.

A massive, furnace-like, solid body was nestled tightly around her back, and her head rested on one of his arms, like a warm, muscular pillow. His other arm lay over her, pulling her tight against his front.

She'd never been more comfortable in her life.

It was only the second time she'd woken up in Ben's arms, but the situation she found herself in was a far cry from the sweet, innocent position they'd ended up in last time, when she was a bit younger. This time, her hips were tucked against his, and his hands were in...decidedly different locations. Or, at least one of them was.

The hand of the arm that lay over her was nestled between her breasts, resting just over the oversized cotton t-shirt she'd put on before falling asleep, and she wondered if he could feel her heart pound underneath his fingertips.

Not a minute later, she felt him pull the neck of the overly-large t-shirt down with his teeth, exposing one of her shoulders. Plush lips touched and then burned against the skin that had been uncovered. He kissed her there gently, nipping at her with his teeth here and there, and slowly kissed a trail to her neck, not saying a word. It took him an eternity to get to her neck, and when he did, his arms tightened around her, and the kisses he planted were open-mouthed, and less gentle.

He'd leave marks, and Rey didn't mind at all.

Her breathing picked up, unsure of how to proceed, but the hand that rested between her breasts moved a bit to the side until he was cupping her, gently brushing a thumb over one of her nipples until it pebbled under the thin cotton.

Rey moaned his name in response, and felt him chuckle against her skin.

"Good morning, sweetheart," he said in a low, husky voice.

She keened softly as his hand moved under the shirt she wore, trailing back up to her breast. He carefully rolled her nipple between two fingers and she gasped quietly, then cleared her throat to murmur, "This is  _not_  a bad way to wake up."

He hummed, and said, "So there's something on my mind."

 _Right_. Logically, she'd known the night before that they'd need to have that conversation...she'd just been a bit to preoccupied by... _well_ , by a lot of things. Mainly, Ben's lips. And his hands.

She blushed and rolled over to nuzzle into his chest, saying quietly, "I know, we should probably slow things down. While you adjust back to everything."

"Oh." Ben blinked. "Yeah, that's true. I guess we  _should_  talk about that. I mean, take things slow,  _yes_. Stop?" he grimaced at the idea, and shook his head, "Definitely not."

"I didn't mean that we should stop," she said quickly.

He let out a sigh of relief, and tightened his arms around her, "Good. That's good. Obviously things are going to take a lot to adjust to, but…" he kissed the top of her head, and said softly against her skin, "But I don't really feel like giving up that  _boyfriend_  title."

Rey giggled, and after a moment, she said, "Huh, wait, what were  _you_  going to say? What was on your mind?"

When she looked up he'd turned a bit pink. "Honestly, I was going to see if you liked the idea of morning sex."

Once she realized he wasn't joking, she snorted, and tilted her head up to kiss his lips as one of his arms reached down to draw her leg up over his hip.

"Let's assume  _yes_ ," she whispered.

Ben chuckled and rolled over her, pressing her gently into the mattress. She wrapped both legs around his waist and lifted her head to nuzzle at his neck as he said, "If you don't mind, I have a request."

"Let me guess," Rey laughed, her head falling back onto the pillow under her, "Morning sex?"

"Okay, maybe I have two requests," he grinned cheekily, "I want to date. I love being best friends, and I don't care if most of our dates are more along the lines of  _Netflix and chill_ , or whatever people call it, but I want to date you." He leaned down and kissed her forehead, adding, "If we're going to do this - and if I have any say in it, we definitely are - I want to do this right."

Rey thought for a minute, and smirked. "Let me get this straight. In twenty four hours we went from sort-of-fighting in a cage match, to kissing, to sleeping together, and now you're asking me out on a first date?"

Ben paused, and admitted, "Okay, so, maybe it's a little out of order, and kind of unconventional, but-"

"Of course I'll go out on dates with you," she breathed, smiling up at him.

"Really?"

Rey rolled her eyes. "Just assume from now on, that my answer is  _yes_  to pretty much anything you're trying to offer me, okay?"

After a moment, Ben winked, and asked in a low voice, "Does that apply to sex?"

"What do you think?" she giggled.

The smile that broke out across his face lit up the room, and he bent down over her to capture her lips in a tender, oh-so-gentle kiss. She smiled against his lips, ran her fingers through his hair, and sighed into him. All of it - the feeling of him around her, the feeling of his lips against hers, the perfect comfort she felt with him - it all made her feel... _cherished._  Adored.

Loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A breakfast, some fallout, and a date.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> Attack: Well if the slowburn wasn't over before, it definitely is now.
> 
> Onfire: More matters about Snoke and the consequences of everything shall be discussed in future chapters! Also, sorry for not getting to all the comments everyone, it's been very crazy this past week! We do intend on answering them when we get the chance to!
> 
>  
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	41. Black Belt, Third Stripe, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you probably noticed that onfire and I basically took a week off. We had a good deal of rearranging and replanning to do with this third act, because a few weeks ago we decided to cut out a massive amount of romantic angst we'd had planned. We figured these characters have enough on their plates without having to deal with romantic drama on top of it. So, don't expect any romantic drama. Ben already needs therapy, and rather than being all drama, this Act is going to just be a whole lot of healing. Oh...and Snoke.
> 
> ...we did mention he's not dead, right?
> 
> Anyway, picking up right where we left off.
> 
> ***Mom, if you're reading, _this_ would be a chapter to skip.***
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


Ben's weight was settled comfortably over her, and Rey sighed contentedly as he kissed down her neck. When he reached the collar of the t-shirt she wore, he lifted his head, dark eyes sparkling, and quirked his lips at her. "Why are you still wearing clothes?"

She couldn't stop the light bubbly laugh that escaped her then. "Probably because I can't get this off while you're on top of me."

"Oh. Right," he huffed, grinning as he sat up and helped her pull it off, tossing it somewhere unimportant. He hummed at the view of her bare before him again, this time with daylight streaming in to paint her skin with a warm glow, and he climbed back over her, resuming the trailing kisses down her body. Each spot he touched felt feverish and hot, and the feeling stuck with her even when he moved on to the next.

There was a small phone books worth of aches and pains from last night still hanging in the background, but they all seemed small and insignificant in the face of her desire. She was going to be feeling them later, when she wasn't so distracted by the sight of a naked Ben, but those were future Rey's problem.

Unlike the night before, Rey wasn't entirely content to let him take the lead again. Not that it didn't feel incredible to have his hands on her, or his lips on her skin - it really  _was_  incredible, and nothing less. But she hadn't been bluffing in the cage when she'd mentioned thinking about an awful lot of scenarios, and-

She interrupted her own thoughts with a moan as Ben eased a roaming finger into her and carefully teased at one of her nipples with his teeth. Sometimes, she was still amazed at the reaction he could inspire in her, but whatever pleasure she felt vanished as he added a second finger. She winced and felt her hips jerk in reaction.

"Sore," she breathed, then cleared her throat and said more clearly, "I think I'm actually a bit sore. Last night was, uh-"

Ben had pulled his fingers out of her as soon as she'd reacted, and he glanced up at her with concern. "Yeah, sorry. Probably should've realized." He kissed around her thighs for a moment, eliciting an involuntary shudder from her. He looked back up at her, smirking, "Can I still use my mouth?"

He phrased it like a question, as if he didn't recognize her reaction, but Rey now had firsthand experience with his mouth and there was no chance in hell she was letting any opportunity for that go.

He lowered himself and planted a single, soft, kiss against her clit. It was a promise, a reminder, and a wish all in one and she watched him continue, maintaining eye contact with him the whole time, and gasped at the touch of his lips on her.

They maintained eye contact, and, after a lifetime of silent conversation, she felt his tongue venture out and grace her clit with its tip.

Heat pooled in her body at the action, and wondered not for the first time how he was able to get that sort of reaction from her with a smile and a few words, and suddenly, she wondered exactly how much of that power she herself had over  _him_.

Only one way to find out, she supposed.

"Okay," she smiled, nodding, "but if you do, I'm returning the favor."

Dark, wide eyes flashed up to hers from between her thighs as he pulled away and huskily said in a low voice, "Sorry, I think I misheard. What was that?"

Yep. He was just as affected by her words as she was his. A bit of satisfaction bloomed in her chest as she lifted herself up on her elbows, and stared down at him, saying in no uncertain terms, "If you get to use your mouth, then so do I."

It wasn't something she'd done before, but the previous few days had been a whirlwind of  _things she hadn't done before_ , and in comparison to walking into a illegal cage fight, oral sex really didn't seem all that intimidating.

Ben lifted his head just high enough for her to see him swallow hard, and he cracked a smile, saying in a deliciously deep voice, "Well, we could do both."

A lazy grin spread over her face as she nodded, and before she had time to think about exactly  _how_  they were going to do that, he'd moved up to lay on his back next to her with his head on a pillow, explaining, "Might make more sense if you're on top, you'll have more control that way."

Rey blinked at him. "On top?" She swallowed hard, and blushed, "Is that really something that's uh... _enjoyable_  for you?

He glanced over and raised an eyebrow at her, "You're kidding, right? It's literally a fantasy come true. I mean," he hesitated, "if it makes you uncomfortable we definitely don't-"

She shut him up by grabbing him by the back of his head and pulling him over for another kiss. She'd always fantasized about kissing him and having him, but there was still something exotic to the taste of his lips - to the pleased low rumble he unconsciously made whenever she held him like this for longer than a few seconds. Ben's body betrayed every one of his thoughts the longer she had him in her arms, and it sent another trill along her spine as her hands reached down and grasped him.

Ben let out a low and pleased growl at her motions before she broke off the kiss, grinning wickedly.

"It doesn't make me uncomfortable," she reassured him, sitting up, and tucking her legs under her so she was on her knees. Her eyes swept over him, and she bit her lip. "You're sure?"

Ben chuckled and caught her hand in his, then wrapped his arm around her and pulled her down for another slow, deep kiss. When it ended, he nipped at her bottom lip, murmuring, "Whatever you want, sweetheart."

A soft, approving noise came from her throat as his fingers pressed into her hip, and she breathed, "Oh I definitely want to."

She blushed furiously as he helped her move over him, positioning a knee on either side of his head with her back facing the bed's headboard, and she was just about to giggle nervously and ask if he was  _really_  sure, but then his hands grabbed at and wrapped around her thighs as he pulled her fully against him and started lapping at her enthusiastically.

Rey sucked in a breath at the sensation and moaned at the feeling of him running his tongue all over her, circling her clit and thrusting up into her. His mouth seemed to excise patience even as every inch of him seemed to exude anticipation, and Rey closed her eyes for a moment, relishing the feel of his tongue purposefully brushing against her in smooth, controlled motions that sent small shocks throughout her body.

As his grip tightened on her thighs she leaned down over his torso, enjoying the feel of his exposed body under her touch, and immediately recognized a problem. She let out a breathy giggle even as Ben's grasp of her made her knees weak. "Ben," she laughed, pulling her hips away from him slightly, "Ben, I can't reach. I think we forgot how tall you are."

After a moment of palpable perplexion she felt him shake with silent laughter under her and then he said, "Fuck, okay, hold on a sec."

It took some maneuvering, but eventually they ended up on their sides, facing each other, and in no time, Ben had wrapped her thighs back around his head. It was strange what just changing orientation did, but Rey could reach for him much more easily in their new position.

She took a nervous breath, all too aware of just  _how_  experienced she was in some ways, and finally dove in, wetting her lips just before licking a line from his base to his tip. Ben's movements against her clit stuttered, but he recovered quickly, sucking softly at her clit.

Wondering what sort of reactions she could get from him, she grasped him and traced a vein with her tongue, using her other hand to skim down his thigh. She felt him shiver slightly, and she moved in a bit closer, pressing her lips to the head of his cock, opening her mouth around him to get a taste. Ben pulled away to utter a swear before burying his head back between her legs, licking her in a way that made her mind go blank and her toes curl.

Rey moaned with her mouth around him, sucking him further into her mouth as she swirled around him with her tongue. Based on his reactions, she seemed to be doing  _something_  right, so she kept going, working up and down his length with her hand and mouth. She wasn't entirely sure what she'd expected, but she hadn't expected it to be so... _fun_. But it was - feeling Ben shake when she took him more deeply, or when she sucked hard, or slid her tongue over his tip made pride and satisfaction surge in her.

This feeling, of power and pleasure intermixed swirled within her core, and Rey almost gasped as Ben took a particularly daring nip at her that left her reeling. She realized, with brilliant clarity, that he was resisting gasping with each thing she tried, planting kisses along her legs and licking at her clit and the area around it with a maddened fervor that would have ruined her if she'd not been so focused on what she was doing. The added intensity of taking him in her mouth, teasing him, and pleasuring him seemed to balance out the warmth building within her, adding to it instead of detracting.

Staying focused was more than a little difficult as she felt pressure building from her own impending orgasm, but what Ben was doing felt  _amazing_ , and she wanted nothing more than to do the same for him. She relaxed her throat and took him as deep as she could, swallowing around him as she continued to suck and work at him with her hand.

He pulled away and swore, then groaned, "Rey, if you keep doing that-"

Rey let him out of her mouth with a pop and breathed, "Go ahead, I don't mind."

"Fuck," he muttered, just before leaning back against her to swirl his tongue around her opening.

She resumed her previous ministrations and picked up the pace, taking him deeply in her mouth while she worked him time with her hand, and after a few minutes she felt him tense, and quiver a bit, then he came in her mouth with a moan against her flesh, and she swallowed whatever he had to offer, surprised to find that it didn't taste unpleasant.

Ben had paused his actions to catch his breath, and then began working at her like a starving man, lapping and sucking all around her clit, and then finally, he honed in on the firm, sensitive nub and gently nipped at it, and Rey came hard, with his name on her lips and her thighs trembling, locked around his head.

A few moments later, they'd both rolled over on their backs, staring up at the ceiling while their heart rates returned to normal human levels.

"Wow," he breathed, "Fuck, not to be weird or anything, but where'd you learn how to do that? I mean, I thought I'd probably need to make some suggestions or-"

"I  _do_  watch porn, y'know," she replied dryly. Then she smiled softly and said, "But uh...please, do go on and tell me how good that was."

Ben let out a soft chuckle and said, " _Good_  really isn't the word I'd use, sweetheart."

She purred contentedly, and a peaceful silence settled over the room, until Rey cleared her throat and said quietly, "I'm going to go take a shower…" she paused, sat up, and added in what was hopefully a casual tone, "you're welcome to join me."

Ben's eyes went a bit wide at that, his smile had turned wolfish, and he chuckled lowly. "Sounds good to me, sweetheart."

Rey grinned. "We're going to be so late to lunch."

After a quick laugh, Ben nuzzled against her shoulder and said quietly, "Worth it."

* * *

The ground was still steaming from the sun and early morning rain when Ben and Rey arrived at Maz's. They'd taken their time walking there in the beautiful summer heat, fingers tangled together the whole time and they chatted and joked and grinned like lovesick idiots, and...it was all so  _easy_. Ben didn't seem to care much about arriving at the diner in a timely manner, because on the way he kept tugging at her hand and pulling her in for kisses.

She loved it.

But stepping back into the diner after the previous night was bizarre. Like Alice returning from Wonderland, there was a strange and ethereal quality to the place after everything they'd been through. The convention's last day had been the day before, so the rush of activity that had kept Rey so thoroughly busy all week was gone, leaving her flat-footed as she stared at the relative quiet inside. Maz was behind the counter for once, writing down orders in her usual chicken scratch handwriting.

Maz didn't even glance over when she heard the entrance bells chime. Without saying anything the woman waved and pointed to an occupied booth. Rey noticed with a twinge of  _awkward_  that Luke and Leia were already there, chatting comfortably while the former nursed a suspicious brown bottle that had it's label torn off and the latter looked like she could use three of whatever he was having.

Rey supposed she shouldn't have been surprised that they were already there. Luke  _did_  live across the road, and he did say Leia had been kept abreast of everything. It wasn't exactly like they'd set a specific time (though, Rey knew instinctively that they were definitely late), and after the evening they'd all had, they were lucky that was the biggest thing they'd flubbed on. She'd been planning on texting him once they'd gotten a booth to let him know to meet them there, but that was clearly a moot point now.

Suddenly her mind decided to remind her of what she and Ben had gotten up to both when they'd got back to her place and earlier that morning. As much as she'd enjoyed their morning endeavors, it  _had_  delayed them by a bit, even if every single minute had been worth it.

Leia was the first to spot them. She perked up from her conversation with Luke, and smiled in their direction. There were bags under her eyes, and a weight that had more to do with age and experience than anything else. She wore tasteful gray blouse and was gripping a mug of coffee like it was a lifeline.

She nudged her brother and suddenly Rey was very aware that this was Ben's  _mother_. As in, the mother of the man she'd kissed, had sex with, had her mouth on, and had kicked in the balls all in one night. And not even in that order.

Wow. They'd really had a strange twenty-four hours.

Rey felt a traitorous blush begin to rise on her cheeks, and she struggled to suppress it. Instead, she grabbed Ben's hand - apparently he'd spotted them too and was now doing his best impression of a statue - and dragged him over to the booth. She resolutely ignored the knowing gaze Maz was shooting her, even as Ben's stilted, robotic steps resulted in him banging his hip against one of the tables instead of moving out of the way like a normal person.

"Hi," Rey said, and realized that was about as far as she'd planned this particular conversation.

For a moment all four of them just looked at each other. Luke looked like he'd just swallowed something bitter, though Leia seemed more amused than anything. Tired, but there was an indefinable quality to her expression that would have normally worried Rey had she not seen it on Maz's face multiple times.

After a nice bit of awkward silence, Luke moved out to sit beside his sister while Rey pulled Ben into the booth with her so they were sitting across from the other two. She smiled broadly at them in an attempt to break the ice and just as she was feeling the uncomfortable tension dissipate, a new song came on the jukebox.

She perked up, happy for something to talk about. "Oh I love this-"

Rey froze as she remembered the name and lyrics of the Foreigner song that had come on the jukebox.

"-oh no."

Ben glanced at her curiously. In the course of stepping inside, he'd somehow swallowed his expansive vocabulary and could only come up with something along the lines of "Guh". Of course, tall, dark, and dumbass was blushing from the situation they were in, but he was about to get a  _lot_  more embarrassed.

She knew the exact moment he caught wind of the lyrics because that was when Ben's grip on her hand, something that reminded her of a cold wet foam noodle, turned into something tight and almost painful.

> _"I know I can't help myself,_  
>  _You're all in the world to me._  
>  _It feels like the first time,_  
>  _Feels like the very first time."_

"I'm going to murder Maz," Rey muttered, after pinching Ben so he'd loosen his grip on her hand. Then she sucked in a breath and plastered on a smile, ignoring the song as she looked across at Leia...who was struggling not to laugh. After a moment she composed herself and cleared her throat, "So, what are you two ordering?"

Luke just shook his head and drank from his bottle, holding it straight up to guzzle the rest of it. When it was gone he winced, and held it up, gesturing to Maz. "I'm going to need another one," he said loudly.

"So," Leia said, smiling at them, and really, that was when Rey should have known to change the subject immediately, because the next words out the woman's mouth were, "You two have a fun night?"

Ben yelped. Ben Solo, the man who'd faced down a dozen armed psychos and who'd told Alistair Snoke to fuck off not even eight hours earlier,  _yelped._  He jumped in his seat, banged his knee against the bottom of the table they all sat at, began to cuss, and then seemed to think better of it when he looked across the table and saw the flat stare and accompanying smirk Leia was shooting him.

Luke didn't even bother looking back, instead he raised his empty bottle a little higher, and said in a louder voice, "I could really use another here, Maz!"

Maz conveniently chose that moment to walk back into the kitchen, and suddenly Rey was positive that she and Leia had conspired some of this encounter. She wasn't sure, and she wouldn't be able to prove it, but suddenly the familiarity in Leia's smile, the one that told Rey she somehow knew  _far_  more than Rey had expected, was startling. And that was because Rey saw that stupid knowing grin on Maz's face every day.

Rey was about to send up a silent prayer to whoever was listening to  _please_  let her survive this lunch, but maybe it was the afterglow or the exhaustion or some third reason, but she couldn't even muster the energy to be embarrassed anymore. Some little demon took hold and wiped away all her worries with its toothy smile. She met the woman's challenge and grinned. "Yep."

"Glad to hear it," Leia replied, her voice sibilant and suppressing laughter, "So, do I have anything to worry about? Are you going to burn down another building?"

Luke and Ben both choked and started frantically looking around to see if anyone had overheard. But no, everyone else in the diner was studiously avoiding looking in their direction, which clearly meant that everyone already knew about what happened.

To her credit, Rey took serious time to deliberate on this question. "Probably not," she said, finally.

"You took way too much time answering that question," Luke grumbled, seemingly to himself.

"You caused me a lot of work last night. People in the hospital, arson, launching a federal investigation..." Leia said loftily. Rey's danger senses, finely honed after years and years and especially so after the previous night's events, began preparations for Defcon 1. "Was it worth it?"

Rey met her stare, hazel to brown, and didn't flinch. "Absolutely."

The diner seemed to go deathly quiet at her words. One of the men at the counter started a violent coughing fit.

The staredown seemed to last forever, and for a moment Rey was worried she'd done something wrong, but then Leia melted. The steel faded into something warm and bubbly and it was only a good tens seconds into her sudden and unexpected chuckling that Rey let herself relax. Both Ben and Luke were staring at the woman in horror, as if they couldn't believe what they'd just seen.

"And I had such high hopes for you Rey. You seemed so smart before." Leia said at last, "You'll fit in just fine with us. Biggest group of troublemakers around."

"You say that like that's a good thing," Luke said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Oh honestly, Luke," Leia said, and there was humor and a wicked sort of glint in her eyes that Rey understood could only sprout between siblings, "At least one of them had the good sense to call someone this time before things caught fire. I'm assuming you were safe?"

"Er, well," Ben began, and Rey wondered how he could not tell that this was a trap, "I wouldn't exactly call running into the ring-"

"Not that," Leia waved off the point, as if that part had been unimportant, "I'm talking about when you got back."

"What?" he said, and really, it was a good thing he was so pretty because Rey was wondering how someone could not see the hole in the ground he was walking right into.

"When you got back!" Leia said, this time a tad impatiently (though Rey imagined it was all for show), "Were you at least safe when you got back to her place? I'm not ready to be a grandmother yet, you know!"

Ben jerked in place and banged his knee and again and whatever composure he'd regained was gone.

Rey giggled. She couldn't help it. Of all the ways this conversation could have gone, this was absolutely at the bottom of the list. Beside Leia, Luke continued his impression of a wailing dog as he nursed the empty bottle. "Yes, please," he said, a touch inebriated, "please tell me more about that. I definitely need to know the details."

Ben...croaked. Or rather, he tried to say something and the sound of a very sick frog escaped him.

Leia snapped her fingers in faux realization and pointed at both of them. "That's why you were so late!" she said, forcing astonishment through and sounding ridiculous for it, "You almost stood us up, you know."

"My morning is only getting better the more I hear," Luke groused, and Rey wondered if perhaps this wasn't the most uncomposed she'd ever seen him.

"Oh shut up, you big baby," Leia said, turning to her brother, "It's not like you didn't accidentally walk in on Han and I-"

Ben smacked his hand to his face and groaned, muttering, "You should have just left me there to die.  _That_  would have been less torturous."

Rey glared over at him, "Don't you dare joke about that," and lightly smacked his shoulder. "We had sex, it's not the end of the world. It's perfectly normal."

"Oh do go on," Luke muttered under his breath, "Please, tell us more about the sex, I could use some good old-fashioned alcohol poisoning."

Rey watched in amusement as Leia rolled her eyes at her brother, "Oh stop, you old fool." She looked back at Ben and said flippantly, 'She's right, there's no need to be so dramatic. You know, your father and I-"

"Maz," Luke interrupted desperately, waving his hand at the woman who'd just walked out of the kitchen, "Can I get that beer now?"

By then, the song had ended,  _thank God,_ but Rey nearly died when the next one came on. "Really?  _Really?_ " she whined, "Maz is totally doing this on purpose."

Ben looked over at her, "Huh?"

"The song," Rey sighed, "Since we walked in all of the songs have a- uh... _theme_."

She watched Ben listen to the lyrics and as he did, his cheeks turned even more red. No one noticed Leia meet Rey's eyes and offer a wink.

> _"I want to know what love is, I want you to show me,  
>  I want to feel what love is, I know you can show me."_

"We should have skipped lunch," Ben huffed. "This was a bad idea."

"Oh hush," Leia scolded. "You're all being silly. Luke's been drinking for the past half an hour and you two keep turning red - it's like you're all a bunch of blushing virgins."

The words just sort of slipped out of Rey's mouth before she had a chance to stop them. "Not anymore," she muttered under her breath. She clapped a hand over her mouth and noticed Ben look over at her incredulously.

Leia just began laughing, and Maz, thankfully, came over to interrupt.

"Getting your usual, kids?" the woman asked, giving Rey a knowing smirk.

"Yes, please," Rey nodded, adding, "And Maz, can we lay off on the Foreigner for a bit?"

The woman's smirk just grew more intense as she shrugged and said, "Sorry girlie, jukebox just plays whatever's been requested."

"Wonderful," Rey uttered sarcastically through gritted teeth. "Just.  _Wonderful."_

Ben ordered his usual too, and swore as soon as Maz walked away. Rey looked over at him questioningly, and he explained, "I should have ordered beer. I have a feeling I might need one."

"I know I do," Luke grumbled, taking a long drink from the fresh one Maz had handed him. As far as Rey knew, Maz absolutely did not have a liquor license but that wasn't stopping her. Or Luke apparently.

"Any chance I can have some of that?" Ben asked, his voice sounding a bit desperate.

Luke grumbled something unintelligible, and drank more, finally saying, "Get your own, I have a feeling I'm gonna need this one." Then he gestured toward the door, and Rey turned in her seat just in time to see Lando walk in. The man paused, listening to the song (Maz, crazy witch that she was, had apparently queued up quite a few songs).

> _"Maybe I'm wrong, won't you tell me if I'm coming on too strong?_  
>  _This heart of mine has been hurt before, this time I want to be sure,_  
>  _I've been waiting for a girl like you to come into my life._  
>  _I've been waiting for a girl like you, your loving will survive."_

A broad, charming grin grew across the man's face as he turned to glance over at Ben and Rey, and nearly shouted across the diner, "Heyyyy, Ben, you finally get lucky?"

That was pretty much the moment she gave up feeling any sort of embarrassment, because otherwise she might have died from it. She ignored the chortles coming from Leia, and sighed as Lando scooted into the booth next to them. With three people on one side, Ben didn't have much of an option (not that she minded), but to sit with his side pressed up against hers, and he tucked an arm around her shoulders.

"Hey lovebirds, heard about how you pissed Snoke off," Lando leaned across him to wink at Rey, and then snorted and said, "Christ Ben, what'd you do to the girl's neck?"

"Hey, I have plenty too," Ben said defensively, obviously completely regretting the words the moment he said them.

Rey couldn't help but giggle at Ben's reaction, and said under her breath, "Yeah, but none that are obviously visible."

She heard Luke sigh, and say, "I wonder if Maz has something stronger."

After another awkward moment, Rey decided she'd had enough, and snapped, "Alright, look.  _Yes_  we spent the night together,  _yes_ , obviously we enjoyed ourselves, and  _yes_ , we're dating now, so can we just move on and talk about literally anything else?"

"I second that," Luke piped up, tipping his bottle toward Rey in a mock toast. "Please. Anything else. Ben, you figure out if you need a place to stay?"

He cleared his throat and squeezed Rey's knee appreciatively, saying, "Actually, Uncle Luke, if you don't mind, I think I'll take you up on your offer. I can pay you a bit of rent, but I'm sort of out of a job now. Thankfully I have some saved up, but I'll need a place to stay while I figure out how to…" he shrugged a bit helplessly, "how to move forward from here, I guess."

"I actually have some ideas about that," Leia said, finally finished laughing. "Luke and I were doing some talking." She looked over seriously at her brother, who nodded for her to continue, "We think, maybe, it might be good for you to take a bit of a break from martial arts. Not for long, but…" she sighed, and said, "Don't you think you might want a bit of a break?"

Surprisingly, Rey found herself agreeing with Leia. She only did Taekwondo as a hobby, and even then it got overwhelming. The idea of doing it constantly and in such a demanding and aggressive environment seemed exhausting.

"You don't have to," Luke added. "It's just a suggestion. Like I told you last night, you're welcome to come back whenever you want, but I thought you might be better off taking the rest of the summer to relax. Figure out where you want to go from here."

Ben had tensed next to her, and Rey looked up, and craned her neck to plant a soft kiss on his cheek, murmuring, "It's a good idea."

He looked down at her, his molten eyes filled with confusion and...maybe a hint of fear, as he said, "Take a break from martial arts? What- what would I do?"

"Relax?" she shrugged. "Do a lot of reading? Go to a beach?"

"Take the girl on a few dates?" Lando offered helpfully.

Leia hummed, adding, "Also, I heard about the Falcon, and I know Chewie would love some help fixing all the damage."

Blood drained from Ben's face as he looked up at Leia. "The- the Falcon? You'd want  _me_  to work on it? I don't know anything about cars."

"Then it'll be a learning experience," Luke said. "Again, kid, this is all up to you. If you want to come back to classes today, fine. But, you've been so heavily focused on this stuff. Wouldn't you like a vacation? Just...shake off some of the stress. Get used to getting a normal amount of sleep again, get used to meeting Rey at the diner for burgers like you used to, spend time at the bookstore, maybe learn something that isn't related to martial arts or fighting. Get used to  _living_  again. Don't you want that?"

Rey watched as Ben's mouth fell open. He paused for a moment, and then finally said softly, "Yeah. Yeah, I do want that. I- I'm not sure how I feel about working on the Falcon, but the rest of it...I can do that."

"Please?" Leia asked, "Ben, it would mean a lot to me. Chewie could use another set of hands, and he's always complaining that he never gets to see you-"

"Yeah kid, c'mon," Lando elbowed him, "Come spend some quality time with Chewie and your Uncle Lando. Plus, your mom forgot to mention, half the time you spend  _fixing a car_  is really just drinking and shooting the shit."

Ben took a deep breath, and Rey held hers, hoping he'd agree. She'd been so excited at the idea of him starting Taekwondo classes with her again, but it was more than a little clear that a break, even for just a month or two, would be beneficial.

"Okay," he said finally. "Okay, I'll do it."

Rey squeezed his hand, and he turned his head to look down at her. He looked nervous, but leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead.

Somehow, she knew everything would be okay.

* * *

Rey never would have imagined the following week to be anything other than wonderful, but real life had to rear its ugly head again and ruin her previous entertainments. As wonderful as having Ben stay over had been, they both acknowledged that it would be better in the long run if they didn't just jump straight into out and out living together, especially since Rose also lived in the same apartment.

Per Leia, Snoke hadn't made a public appearance yet, but that was because apparently the man was officially in South Korea, attending a conference. It was likely a complete sham, meant to discredit any hints of his presence that night at the club. The fire took a couple of days to put out entirely, and the cleanup was still happening. The media hinted at no one other than some "hoodlums" getting caught and found responsible, and Rey had no doubt that that was in no small part due to Snoke's efforts to hide himself and his  _friend's_ involvement, and Leia's valiant and tireless motions to dissuade any inquiries sent Ben's way from Snoke's camp.

Fortunately, whatever video footage, if there ever had been any, was also burnt up in the fire. Luke and Leia were turning out to have valuable experience in dealing with the consequences of nearly killing a bunch of people via Molotov cocktail (she still hadn't wrangled the full story out of them). They said that Snoke would almost certainly be too busy handling any potential leaks, and suppressing as much news regarding this event as possible, at least for a couple of months, to cause them any trouble.

Rey wondered what it said about her that her mind immediately jumped to finally getting Ben out on a proper date in the lull in events.

"So...it's all good now?" Rose asked suspiciously, from her vantage point in the bathroom doorway. She'd arrived from her vacation half an hour earlier, barely dropping her things inside the front door before storming to find Rey too focused on picking out an outfit to worry about Hurricane Tico.

"Not necessarily," Rey said, leaning in close and applying some more makeup in  _just_  the right amount, "I mean, Ben's still got a lot of things to do and it's not like Snoke's just going to go away."

Rose scrutinized her, and calmly stepped out of the way as Rey practically barrelled her down on her way to her room. "I'm still pissed at you, you know," Rose offered, not really sounding it despite her words.

Grimacing, Rey opened her bedroom door and let her roommate, friend, and sometimes romantic counsel into the room. "I know," Rey said, rehearsing all the various excuses she'd come up with in the week since they'd all burned down a building. She internally winced - she was  _never_ going to get used to thinking those words. "It was stupid and dangerous. We could have gotten killed like fifty different times and I know you have your problems with Ben but-"

"Not that," Rose cut in forcefully, and that's when Rey finally took the time to step back and look at her friend. She looked peaky and worn, like a spring that had been stretched too thin, snapped, and then been glued back together. "I'm talking about the fact that I didn't get an invite."

Rey stopped and stared at her friend. "It wasn't a party, you know," she said, slowly, "I almost died. We  _all_  almost died."

"I know," Rose said simply, and Rey wondered what it would take to throw her composure if  _that_  wasn't enough. "But I should have been there."

Considering her, Rey moved closer to get a better look. The jetlag was probably killing Rose, but she guessed that probably wasn't the reason for the red-rimmed eyes or the fact that she had a tissue jammed in her pocket.

"Rose?"

"I should have been there, Rey," Rose whispered and the pounding in Rey's heart took on a quality similar to Snoke's drums. "I could have helped."

"We didn't plan it," Rey said, and, deciding she'd hurt her friend enough, wrapped her arms around the girl in front of her. Rose clamped her arms around her midsection and knocked the breath from Rey's lungs.

"Dummy," Rose said.

"It was pure spur of the moment."

Rose's hand came up and bopped her upside the head. "Still a dummy."

"I….I'm sorry," Rey said, floundering.

They stayed like that for a few minutes and then separated. Whatever lingering resentment there may have been between them was gone, and suddenly Rose gave the minefield of clothing splayed on Rey's floor a wry look.

"So, I'm guessing scary ninja guy's picking you up?" Rose asked wryly, reaching down and picking up a top that Rey had discarded as too solemn for the night's occasion, "Or is this a new thing of yours? If so, that's fine - I can totally get behind leaving my stuff all around the place."

"Let's not," Rey said, snatching the fabric and tossing it on her bed, "And yeah. Tonight's...tonight's our date. Our first date, actually."

"Mmmm," Rose said unconvincingly, "Am I going to have to wear earplugs tonight?"

"We're not- I mean-" Rey stammered, suddenly finding the inside of her closet very interesting, especially since it faced away from her teasing friend. Truth be told, she  _had_  been planning on some more alone time with Ben, but those plans had been made before Rey realized that tonight was the night her friend was returning from her vacation. "I mean...I was thinking he could stay over? If that's okay?"

Rey waited with trepidation as Rose seemed to turn the idea over in her head. She knew they'd had disagreements about Ben in the past, and though she was definitely looking forward to spending the night with Ben, she didn't want to impugn on the sacrosanct roommate-thing she had going on with Rose. Neither of them had ever had someone spend the night, and just arbitrarily deciding things without her roommate's approval didn't sit well with Rey.

But it seemed, she needn't have worried.

"Don't worry about it," Rose said, sagging. "I probably won't even be awake for anything. I'm beat."

Rey blinked. "You're not mad?"

Rose shook her head, and seemed to consider Rey as if she were some small amusing animal. "Mad? Rey, I'm too tired to be mad right now. Cross-continental trips suck. Besides," she shrugged, "I trust you. I mean, you clearly need to have your brain checked-"

"Hey!"

"-but you're not stupid Rey," Rose finished. She yawned, a loud room-defining thing, and added, "You know Ben better than I do. I'll keep an eye on him to make sure he isn't up to anything funny but," she shrugged again and didn't really say anything after that.

Rey bit her lip, and, because she couldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, said, "What changed?"

Rose fixed her with a glare, and Rey realized she wasn't entirely clear of the nuclear fallout from all her actions from the past week. "What changed is that you nearly  _died_ , Rey," Rose said, managing to sound both terrified and pissed. "Things tend to change when that happens. I'm just glad you're alive. You and Ben, and all our friends. And if seeing him in the morning is what I have to deal with as a result of everything, well...I think I can live with that."

Swallowing, Rey looked up and met her unwavering stare, and then offered her a hug. Rose all but fell into Rey's arms, and hugged her tightly once more.

"Besides," Rose added, mumbling into Rey's arms, "Something tells me sleeps shirtless. Please,  _tell_  me he sleeps shirtless. The guy  _must_ have crazy abs, right?"

"Rose!" Rey half-laughed, "That's my boyfriend you're talking about!"

"Yeah," Rose conceded, "who you slept with after you kicked the shit out of him, but before you went on a date. You know things usually happen the other way around right?"

"You're terrible!"

"I'm sleep-deprived," Rose said, entirely too seriously, "I cannot be held accountable for anything I say."

* * *

Ben paced nervously in front of Rey's apartment door, not for the first time. The last time he'd done so had just been a month or two prior, when he'd been too nervous and afraid to bother knocking, and it was something he still regretted. He still wasn't entirely sure why she'd even consider giving him a chance after everything he'd done, but for whatever reason, she'd chosen to, and he wasn't going to waste it.

He sucked in a deep breath and stopped his pacing, then turned and knocked on her door.

Rey opened it just seconds later, a breathless vision in a flowy knee-length gray skirt and a green sweater that made her eyes pop, and suddenly, all the crazy shit Ben had been dealing with all week just melted away.

"Hey," she greeted softly, a warm smile gracing her face.

"Hi," he breathed. He was about to reach toward her to pull her in for a hug, and remembered he was carrying a bouquet. "Oh, right, these are for you."

Her face lit up as she took the flowers from him, and she said, sounding surprised, "You- you got me roses?"

"I was going to get you stargazer lilies, actually," he explained quietly, fidgeting nervously, "But apparently they're deadly. To cats, I mean."

"Oh."

Ben watched as she looked between him and the roses she held, and frowned. "Is everything okay? I thought- I mean...we said we wanted to try dating, and I thought flowers were kinda normal, but-"

"It's perfect," she whispered. Rey held the flowers to her face and grinned before walking into the apartment, gesturing for him to follow her, "Just a minute, I want to put these in water."

Ben followed her into the kitchen and watched nervously as she looked through the cabinets, presumably for a vase. "Damn," she swore. "How did that even get up there? Rose is even shorter than me."

He glanced up and saw a vase sitting high up on a top shelf, and snorted. "I'll get it," he offered, reaching over Rey to grab the glass container his mother had undoubtedly given the girls when they moved in. When he set it down on the counter he realized Rey had turned around, and another step further would have him pressing her against the cabinets.

She was so... _close_ , and his mind flashed back to activities they'd taken part in a week earlier, that they unfortunately hadn't had time to repeat.

"Hi," she whispered again.

A soft smile graced his lips as he took a step closer, put his hands on her hips, and whispered back, "Hey."

Rey grinned up at him and pressed her hands to his chest, asking, "So, why haven't you kissed me yet?"

"Well," Ben paused, and then smirked, "doesn't the kiss usually happen at the  _end_  of the first date?"

"We don't tend to do things in order," she laughed.

He hummed, and felt his nerves settle. He lifted her chin up with a finger as he said softly, "No, I guess we don't."

When his lips met hers, it felt like his chest was about to burst in a supernova. Suddenly all his worries, concerns, hopes, and thoughts all boiled down into one beautiful, thrilling word... _Rey._

For the first time in quite a while Ben thought,  _maybe_  the future would be bright.

As bright as the starlight he'd followed home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: First date, a job, and therapy.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> Attack: I love fluff. _sigh_
> 
> Onfire: More of a transitional chapter, but it does help build up some things that we hope to address in the future. Snoke absolutely is alive, but we have a wonderfully delicious fate set in store for the man. Thank you so much for reading with us thus far!
> 
>  
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	42. Black Belt, Third Stripe, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, but _grad school._
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


Rey kept...fidgeting.

It was the oddest thing. She kept having to mentally scold herself for being so damned nervous, and yet, she couldn't even understand why she was nervous in the first place. It wasn't as if she hadn't been in a car with Ben before.

But there she was, in the passenger's seat of Luke's car (neither of them had cars anymore, so they'd awkwardly borrowed his), fidgeting nervously. She felt every vibration and turn of the car in her body as they drove down the same roads she'd always driven, this time with the added flavor of on-a-date to really drive home the awkwardness.  _Sure_  it was technically their first date, but c'mon, they'd known each other for years and they'd even survived the world's most uncomfortable lunch, so it's not as if she had any reason to be freaking out...right?

From the look of him, Rey guessed Ben was  _also_  feeling a little weird. He kept glancing over at her and giving her half-smiles, but the car ride was noticeably quiet. She didn't dare pop in the CD she'd made him for fear that Phasma's lovely little addition to it would play, and she didn't exactly trust in Luke's music system to skip tracks properly anyways, so they sat in silence.

Finally Rey cleared her throat and asked, "So...where are we going?"

It was just a little after seven in the evening, and Rey was almost completely sure they were just getting dinner, but she'd realized while getting ready that they'd never really gone out to any place but Maz's, and maybe a pizza place with Luke.

She was famished anyways, regardless of what they did. Maz had apparently gone out of her way to work Rey to the bone for the simplest of reasons this past week, and Rey got the impression it was the old hag's way of demonstrating how much she cared about her, after nearly getting caught in a burning building.

"There's uh...a sushi place Hux suggested. I haven't been, but I didn't know if that's something you'd want to try?" Ben shrugged, and then took a deep breath, letting it all out slowly.

Oh. He was more anxious than she was. How had she not noticed that? She was more than a little surprised that  _Ben_ , the guy she'd been wanting to date for years, was now  _nervous_  to go out with her.

It was sweet. Very, very sweet.

Rey bit her lip, and reached over to put her hand on his knee. The poor guy jumped, and she smiled softly, saying, "Ben, I think it's really nice that you want to go somewhere new and-" she shrugged, " _probably_  a little fancy, but can I make a request?"

"Uh," he glanced over at her curiously, "Yeah, of course."

"Unless you  _really_  want sushi, I think we should go to the diner, and then I think we should walk to the ice cream place, and if we still want to keep going, I think we should stop into the bookstore."

They'd done that exact set of things countless times before. In fact, Rey remembered the first of her truly happy birthdays starting with that exact sequence of events.

Ben's brow furrowed, "We've done all of that before."

"We have," Rey hummed. Knowing how nervous he was had cleared up a lot of her own anxiety, though there was still a small pond of jitters and butterflies beating around in her chest. "And what's wrong with that? I thought we wanted to  _date_. Dating doesn't have to be fancy restaurants. Dating can be diner food, ice cream, bookstores, stargazing in a park-"

"Really?" he asked, interrupting. "It won't be less...special?"

She snorted, and then laughed as she shook her head, "Of  _course_  not. Are you kidding?" Rey looked over and smiled broadly at him, "Ben, I'd actually  _prefer_  to just do something familiar. The idea of us going on a date is overwhelming enough, I really don't feel like adding on the pressure of it being a classy restaurant and flowers - not that I didn't love the flowers, but  _Ben_ , I was hoping our idea of a date was just us being-" she shrugged, "us. Just... _together."_

"Oh."

Rey looked over, hoping he wouldn't be disappointed, and felt a surge of relief as he nodded, and smiled, seeming relieved himself. "That's- that's perfect," he sighed. "You really don't mind?"

Even if she had, just hearing the relief and the deflating unease in his voice would have had her changing her mind anyways.

"Ben," she said seriously, "Our first kiss and  _defining the relationship_  talk happened in the middle of a cage fight. The first time we slept together was just after we'd burned down a building with our friends. I really think it's time for us to do something a little  _less_  exciting."

He let out a barking laugh after that, and nodded again. There was a bit more color to his cheeks now, and the golden streaks of dusk reached in and painted a picture of wonder for Rey to admire before he said, "Good point. Maz's it is."

They'd been driving down the same road pulled up in front of the Dojang not two minutes later, and Rey rolled her eyes (but still smiled, and blushed) as Ben dashed out around the car to open the door for her. She laughed and let him help her out of the car, and she let him pull her right into his arms. He hugged her tightly, and said softly as she buried her head in his chest, "Thanks, sweetheart. I think I love your idea of a date."

Rey looked up at him, still a little convinced this was all a dream, and smiled, "Me too."

He leaned down to kiss her forehead, and reluctantly let her go so they could walk across the street to the diner. Halfway there, she remembered he was her  _boyfriend_ , and she reached out to take his hand, casually lacing her fingers with his.

Maz grinned when she saw them walk in, still holding hands, and that was when Rey realized they were a little overdressed for the diner. Ben had matched her level of somewhat-formal with dark gray slacks and a crisp white button-up, its sleeves rolled up his forearms. Luckily most of their bruises from the cage fight had faded, but Rey still had some lingering marks on her arms, which was why she'd gone for the sweater. Thankfully, it was a rather cool summer evening.

The woman gestured to a booth right by the jukebox on the empty side of the diner, and after a moment's consideration, Rey tugged on his hand, pulling him to sit on the same side of the booth as her. He seemed to approve of the idea, and slid in, throwing an arm around her shoulder.

"What're you ordering, sweetheart?" he asked, as if he couldn't guess. He winked for good measure, and Rey decided he didn't do nearly enough smiling and joking if the sight of it still left her feeling like someone was playing a guitar riff with her heart strings.

Composing herself, Rey smirked. "What do  _you_  think?"

"I think I'll get my usual too," he said quietly, pulling her a bit closer so she could tuck her head against his chest. She couldn't really hear it but she imagined she could hear a mountain's rumble beneath his clothing and the thought of it beating for her sent a heady feeling up her spinal cord.

She was just about to comment on it, when she caught his eye. He totally knew.

"Usuals it is," Maz interrupted, showing up just as Rey hummed happily against him. The woman's smile was unprecedented. "I was wonderin' when you two would show up. Out on a date?" She winked at Rey, but Rey was far too content to blush.

"First one, actually," she answered.

The woman seemed pleasantly surprised at that. Maybe even emotional, but that obviously was just the thrill and intoxicating aura of the first date messing with Rey's perception. Maz wasn't the kind to get emotional over much, let alone her own employees love lives. She did seem to mist up just before muttering something about  _silly kids_  and  _being honored_ , and walked off into the kitchen.

Rey wasn't entirely sure what to think of it, but the whole situation just warmed her chest beautifully, and she flushed the moment she looked up at realized Ben was staring down at her.

"Sorry," he said shyly, "you just- you look really nice."

She grinned, and leaned back against the booth, and her eyes happened to flash up to the jukebox.

> _His arm wrapped around her waist, and his other hand clasped hers. The scar that ran down his face was healing well, and her heart pounded as she was reminded that it gave him a rather dangerous look._
> 
> _"Ben," she breathed._
> 
> _His lips worked together for a moment, and he corrected her, "Kylo."_
> 
> _"No, " she shook her head. "I told you, I'm not calling you that." She'd intended to snap, but the words came out softly, like a quiet murmur whispered in a lover's ear._
> 
> _He ignored the comment, and asked lowly, glancing down at her, "Want to dance?"_

"Rey? Hey, you okay?" he asked softly, and Rey nearly jumped out of her seat.

She took a deep breath, and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Just spaced out for a moment. Bad memories," she explained, not taking her eyes off the jukebox.

His eyes followed to what she was focused on, and it seemed to hit him. "Right," he murmured, his shoulders dropping. "Hey, if you'd rather-"

Rey interrupted him, "It was a just a bad memory. Let's make a new one. Slide out."

"Uh...okay?" Ben frowned, but did as she asked, releasing the arm he'd had around her. He slid out of the booth and looked down at her, confused.

She followed right after him, and took the extra few steps over to the jukebox. She nearly knew its selections by heart, and it only took her her a moment to find a good one. It was a little nerve-wracking, because she wasn't sure if Ben would be interested in trying another dance with her so soon after the catastrophe their last one had been, but she took another deep breath, and plugged in the code for a John Hiatt song.

Rhythmic notes from a piano started softly from the jukebox, and Rey turned, biting her lip anxiously as she held a hand out to him.

He looked terrified.

That really wasn't all that surprising, considering-

> _Rey felt breathless, and his eyes smoldered down at her before dropping to her lips. He dipped her slowly and leaned down to meet her in what would have been a kiss-_
> 
> _It would have been a kiss. But something in her said no, not like this._
> 
> _She stopped him, asking softly, "Is this Ben Solo, or Kylo Ren whose arms I'm in?"_
> 
> _His mouth opened, and then shut again. He brought them back to their standing position before asking, "Does it matter?"_
> 
> _Rey sighed and said quietly, "You'll have to take that mask off if you want to kiss me."_

She swallowed hard, and took the risk, stepping forward as she kept her hand out, determined not to let their memory of dancing in the diner be  _that_  memory.

Ben looked down at her hand, and after a moment, he reached out until their fingers were just barely touching. He let out a low, shaky breath as he stepped closer, fully enveloping her hand in his, and he wrapped an arm around her waist. Rey moved into his arms and leaned against his chest as they swayed to the music.

The song she'd picked hadn't been completely thought-out, but as she listened to the lyrics she realized they couldn't have been more appropriate. It seemed Ben thought that way too, because once they'd danced through a couple of verses, he murmured against her forehead, "I like this song a  _lot_  more than the last one."

"Me too," she huffed, finally lifting her head from his chest to look up at him. "Is this okay? I probably should have asked-"

Ben interrupted her with a kiss, soft and gentle. He dropped her hand so he could cup her cheek, and her hands came to rest on his chest as he held her tightly, his lips moving slowly over hers until either she was too wrapped up in kissing him, or until the song ended. She wasn’t entirely sure which is was, but she was giddy and lightheaded by the time he pulled away.

Maz cleared her throat behind them, but Ben let her go, blushing furiously. He ruffled his hair and turned to the woman, saying bashfully, "Sorry Maz."

Thankfully the woman just chuckled and said, "Maybe wait 'til we've closed up before you do that, kids." She shook her head, still laughing, and said, "Your food's ready."

They slid back into the booth, smiling like idiots, and Rey sighed contentedly as Ben proceeded to steal half her fries.

It was the best date she could have imagined.

* * *

They'd done exactly as Rey had suggested, following up their dinner with ice cream and a bit of time in the bookstore before it closed. Though, if the bookstore hadn't been closing for the evening they probably would have been kicked out for other reasons. It seemed the owner didn't appreciate kisses stolen behind shelves, and Rey made sure to buy a few extra books as an apology.

It seemed that Ben couldn't have cared less, as long as his hands were on her. He'd consistently kept an arm around her all evening, and  _wow_  was it something she could get used to.

He'd tried fighting her on the bill at the diner, then when they got ice cream, and finally, he tried pulling out his wallet at the bookstore, but she waved him away. When he looked a bit off-put, she finally smirked and said, "It's not my money. Not exactly."

Ben had frowned, and she'd explained further, "I won it. Hux made me a deal and considering  _how_  I won it, it seemed only right to spend it on both of us."

His eyes had narrowed at that, but he hadn't pushed further.

Rey'd tell him eventually. Probably. Maybe when he was being particularly thick-headed again. Rey had no doubt it was going to happen at some point - he was just too stubborn not to be thick-headed once in a while. Things like that were good surprises to have for a rainy day.

Rose had still been asleep when they got back to her place, and after what Ben had probably assumed would be a goodnight kiss, Rey pulled him into the apartment and shut the door behind him. Thankfully he seemed to take the hint after that, because he pulled her into his arms and kissed her as they stumbled in the direction of her bedroom.

...which led to Rey waking up feeling nearly feverish. She worried for a moment that she might be getting sick, but realized, with relief, that she was only so warm because he was wrapped around her, holding her tightly against his bare chest as he slept. His arms coiled around her lower back, embracing her with a furnace-like heat.

Morning light had flooded the room already, and Rey glanced at her clock, groaning as she realized she had a shift that started in just over an hour. Choosing to ignore that fact for a bit longer, she shut her eyes again and nuzzled into Ben's chest as he sleepily rolled onto his side, facing her. He pulled her against him, muttering something while half-asleep, and tightened his arms so much she was mildly worried about her ability to breathe.

Ben let out a soft sigh, and she relaxed against him, kissing his skin softly as she listened to his quiet breathing. He seemed...content. Peaceful, as if all he needed had been a week away from that cesspool Snoke had created. She knew that was ridiculous - people didn't magically get over the sort of things he'd been through - but even so, part of her was surprised he was sleeping so well, considering everything.

As it was, her nights - at least, the ones she spent alone - were filled with nightmares. Gone were the dreams of her childhood, the ones where her parents left her for the millionth time. In place of those dreams were new ones, and they weren't just nightmares - they were  _could have beens_.

In her sleep, her mind replayed every possible scenario. Every different way things could have gone in the cage. In one scenario, during the first time she'd stepped into the cage, another opponent had come out while Ben was trying to convince her to leave, and Ben had been so distracted trying to keep her safe that he'd nearly died. In another, Luke had never showed up, and they'd  _all_  died. In a particularly painful one, Luke had shown up too late, and Ben had saved all of them by letting someone run him through with a spear before any of them could stop it, and he'd died in her arms.

She'd seen every horrible, terrifying way in which her mind thought things could have played out. Some were bloody. Some were just heartbreaking. Plenty were both.

But not a single one of them involved Ben turning on them. That was something each one had in common - every single time, Ben came back to them. He always renounced the name Snoke had given him, and he always told her he loved her. Sometimes just before he died. Sometimes just before they  _all_  died.

Those were always the best and worst parts. The best, because they reminded her still-sleeping self that it all actually  _had_  happened, and the worst, because it was invariably always the trigger for more horrors that would follow.

Rey sniffed, and felt a teardrop roll down the side of her face and onto Ben as she blinked more away. She tried not to think too hard about the nightmares she had when she wasn't in his arms, and  _this_  was why.

After a moment, Ben must have woken up and noticed, because a hand came up under her chin, and tilted her head up to meet his sleepy gaze. "Everything okay?" he asked quietly.

There was no point in lying to him, and that wasn't really a habit she wanted to get back into, so Rey swallowed, and said softly, "I've been having nightmares. About...everything. I was just thinking about them and it bothered me."

He sighed, and nodded. "Yeah, I understand. I still hear drums when I close my eyes. It lets up when I'm here, with you. But it's like I still haven't exactly escaped it, y'know?"

"Yeah," she whispered, smiling sympathetically. She reached up and caught his lips in a rather chaste kiss, and listened to him chuckle against her lips as he rolled over onto her, planting a knee on either side of her hips.

"You definitely know how to redirect a conversation," he murmured against her throat, between kisses.

Rey laughed, and started letting out breathy giggles as his hands starting tickling at her stomach. "Ben!" she gasped, "I was just-" more giggles, "kissing you good morning!" She stopped talking to laugh hard as he started properly tickling her ribs. "Stop," she breathed, unable to keep the huge smile off her face, "Oh my-  _Ben!_ Stop!"

He snorted, and finally did as she asked, grinning like the jerk he was. He sat back on his feet and shrugged, "Sorry, you're just  _so_  ticklish. I can't help myself."

"You're evil," Rey giggled, rolling her eyes. "Pure  _evil_."

Ben paused, and asked, seeming very amused, "Would  _evil_  make you breakfast?"

She hummed, and followed his question up with one of her own, "Depends. What's for breakfast?"

He grinned, and climbed out of her bed, pulling her with him.

* * *

Thankfully, at one point Rey and Rose had gone through a two-week phase during which they'd tried baking a bunch of things (it had been mostly disastrous), and they'd still managed to retain a good amount of ingredients, including chocolate chips, flour, baking powder, and sugar. Those, and a few other ingredients they'd had in the fridge amounted to pancakes, apparently. It still amazed her that Ben was capable of making something edible considering how his first few attempts ended.

(She regretted not taking a picture of him back then. Him frazzled and fraught as he fought the fire alarm while trying to make chicken parm had been priceless.)

Ben was just about to sit a plate of chocolate chip pancakes in front of her when Rose stumbled sleepily out of her room. She paused, glancing at Ben for a moment, and tilted her head.

Finally, Rose snorted, and muttered, "Guess I was right about the abs." Then she looked over at Rey, apparently more than a little amused by the amount of blushing going on in the room, and added, "Remind me to add earplugs to the grocery list."

Rey groaned, and Ben managed to figure out a reason to return to the kitchen (it was obvious he was using cooking as an excuse to hide). When she looked up, Rose was grinning evilly, and took a seat at the table by Rey, piping up to ask, "Hey loverboy, got any extra pancakes?"

Less than a minute later, he returned from the kitchen with another stack, and handed them to Rose, saying, "First of all, you're a little evil. I can see why you and Rey are such good friends." He paused, and winked at Rey, "Second, I was already making you some. I hope you like chocolate chip."

Rose narrowed her eyes at him, and looked down at the pancakes, making a noise of approval. "Alright," she chirped, "You're welcome to stay over more often." The girl looked over at Rey and added quietly, "Seriously, if he's gonna cook us breakfast and walk around shirtless, have him over  _anytime_."

Before Rey could laugh or scold her friend, Ben called out from the kitchen, "I heard that."

"You were meant to!" Rose called back.

Rey met Rose's eyes, and they both burst into laughter.

Thankfully, Ben just rolled his eyes and grumbled something about  _thirsty undergrads_  as he ducked into Rey's bedroom to put on a shirt before sitting down to join them with his own plate of pancakes. He poured a liberal amount of maple syrup over them, drowning the pancakes in practically an entire bowl full of it, and the action brought to mind a flash bulb memory of Han doing the same onces, years ago when she thought he was just a rude grouch.

Breakfast was oddly normal, and flew by way too fast. Thankfully Rose kept the teasing to a minimum (as in, she only commented on the various noises she heard from them three times instead of the expected ten). Conversation eventually switched over to all the various things Rose had learned about living with Rey, including that Rey apparently was a hair product hoarder and that she had a bad habit of hiding things in corners or crevices that she never noticed before. Growing up within the system had left its mark in ways that Rey didn't think she'd ever grow out of.

Before Rey knew it, she and Ben were waving goodbye to Rose as they left the apartment and-

"Dammit!"

-ran directly into Phasma, who was checking the mail.

Rey hadn't seen Phasma in the week since they'd fled a burning building together. She'd checked in with everyone via text, of course, but she'd gotten the impression that everyone sort of needed time to deal with everything that had happened, in their own ways.

It seemed like Phasma's way was to curl up at Hux's with a bottle.

Or five.

The woman had dark circles under her eyes, and she wasn't as put together as she usually was. Instead, she wore sweats, and what seemed to be a college hoodie, and if Rey hadn't seen her in pajamas at a girl's night, she might have been shocked. She had a stack of envelopes under her arm and was holding up a lone envelope up to the light, a pained expression on her face.

"Hey, Phas," Rey said cautiously, wondering if she should have checked in with her friend a lot earlier. Just because her and Ben were handling things relatively well didn't mean everyone else was, and Rey felt terribly guilty for having just realized that.

She glanced up at Ben, who had grimaced at the sight of their friend. He took a step toward the woman and wrapped her in a hug.

For some reason, Rey just hadn't stopped to think of how everything had affected Phasma. Ben wasn't the only one Snoke had screwed with - Phasma had been an unwitting pawn the whole time, luring new fighters in, only for them to more than likely end up with serious injuries. And now…

Phasma cleared her throat and pulled out of Ben's hug, plastering on one of her trademark smirks. "So, spent the night, huh?" She raised an eyebrow as she looked over at Rey, and asked, "He treating you okay?

She must have noticed the mark on Rey's neck, because her eyes zeroed in on it, and she tutted disapprovingly. "Animal," she teased, looking back to Ben, "You better at least have been careful with her."

Rey watched in amusement as Ben's eyes went wide, and nearly laughed as he blurted, "Phas!"

"What?" she asked casually, "I mean it. Hurt her and you'll have to deal with me. And Luke. And Finn, Poe, Maz...honestly I'd be pretty scared of Rose too if I were you."

Ben made his weird but adorable squawking noise he made whenever he got too flustered to deal with anything.

"Or, better yet, I'll teach her some new moves." Phasma raised the envelope in her hand, as if pretending it were a club, and asked, "Hey Rey, you know any staff forms yet?"

After a moment, Ben huffed, and shook his head, laughing.

"How've you been?" Rey asked cautiously, changing the subject to something a tad less awkward. Or, at least she  _hoped_  it was less awkward.

Phasma snorted. "Well, let's see, cupcake. I recently found out my Master was running a highly illegal and and unethical fight club, I took part in burning said fight club down, and I resigned while doing so." She paused, and added, "Though, I'm pretty sure I would have been out of a job anyway." Then she shrugged, " _That's_  how I'm doing. The best part is, I don't know a whole lot of places looking to hire a Taekwondo Master, especially when most of their job experience includes finding new fighters for the previously mentioned fight club. It's not exactly a popular or sought-out job skill."

The bitterness in her voice would have been enough to turn fresh milk sour. She said all the words with no inflection or indication to the true feeling behind them, but Rey liked to think she'd become somewhat experienced in interpreting Phasma's words beyond just the basic level of sarcasm. Phasma could have taught a college course on it, and still it wouldn't have been enough for most people.

Really, it was no wonder she and Hux got together.

Rey bit her lip, nodding uncomfortably. With a minute of awkward silence, an idea popped into her head. "Wait, you need a job?"

"Why...do you know someone hiring?" Phasma asked curiously.

She smiled, and nodded. "How good are you on skates?"

Hopefully Maz would lighten up on Rey after she brought her a new victim/employee.

* * *

Ben resisted the urge to squirm as he and Threepio waited for the traffic light to turn green. Though he and his mother's assistant had gotten along well enough in his youth, Ben hadn't spent any appreciable time with him in over ten years. It seemed odd and a little disjointed that he would be the one to deliver Ben to his first session.

With Ben's old car serving as one of the numerous and poorly cared-for glorified lawn ornaments in front of a dealership thanks to the previous insistence of his former employer, Ben was forced to rely on alternative means of transportation. He still had the Falcon in his possession. Rey had all but dropped the keys in his pocket after their first date, maybe as a gift, or maybe as a not-so subtle hint that she was done driving the old Ford now that it was with its "rightful" owner. Somehow, dating Rey was  _less_  scary than the idea of driving the Falcon.

Progress on that was going about as well as Ben could have hoped. The car wasn't destroyed. Overall, the damage from the night of his rescue was superficial, though there were some internal workings that he'd been putting off addressing. Apparently the "chaser surprise" that had ensured their safe getaway had been a stream of caltrops, and now the Falcon sounded like a blender on acid whenever Ben left the engine going too long.

Tricking out the car like that...it sounded just like an old episode of Wacky Races he and his dad used to watch, back when Ben used to think nothing would ever happen to those special mornings of theirs.

He closed his eyes and banished the memory away.  _Not now_ , he told himself.

Ben propped his elbow against the window, held his head, and made sure not to sigh, lest he set Threepio on one of his pointless rambles.

Ambivalent late August weather was the setting for their trip. Lilting laughter from some unnamed place out of sight drifted in through the sealed doors and windows. The sun had decided today was the absolute perfect day to bombard everyone with a diabolical amount of sunshine, and with the sky vacant of any clouds, it had made his morning run more difficult than before.

Ben had been given a day's leave from the auto shop with Chewbacca, and after blasting through his morning workout routine twice in a row, Ben was left with an additional four hours of nothingness until Threepio picked him up. He couldn't help it. He couldn't remember having this much time not set aside for anything in months, maybe even over a year.

Overall, Ben was trying to keep himself busy and, taking taken Lando's advice, he'd gotten in the habit of taking Rey out (or at least spending time with her) as often as possible. Half their dates were along the lines of picnics in a park, or on the beach, but whether they were doing that or eating out, or even just watching Netflix it was... _amazing._  He'd fallen into the role of  _boyfriend_  a whole lot more successfully than he'd ever considered possible, surprising her with flowers, cheering her on at her latest promotion (which had been an unsurprising success), picking her up from work (via walking, since they were both without cars for the time being), or even just...being there. Apparently  _that_  was a big portion of a healthy relationship - knowing when to just be there, and listen when your significant other was having a crappy day.

So, with all his spare time, it wasn't a matter of needing more relaxation. He was always relaxed around Rey whenever they were together (which was almost daily, at this point), and he'd even learned to enjoy the menial and occasionally difficult duties that Chewbacca assigned him around the shop when things were slow, but it was distracting and unnerving not not having anything planned for this day. After several fruitless attempts at watching something on Luke's antique of a television, Ben resigned himself to reading one of Luke's old philosophy texts, only to find himself reading the same line a dozen times without comprehending a single bit of it.

Ben had practically leapt out the window when he got the notice that Threepio was already outside.

Which brought them to now, half an hour of interminable apprehension later.

They turned another corner, identical to the last three they'd passed in this neighborhood. They weren't in Coruscant anymore, but hovering on the edge of one of the smaller towns that so many cities seemed to sprout like moss or mushrooms. Ben didn't catch the name, too tense to really care about the trivialities of location.

Threepio, of course, was his usual self. As in, he acted as if everything around him was going to either combust or violently decompose in a matter of seconds. He'd tried exchanging pleasantries with Ben, and even brought up the weather of all things in a vain and weak attempt to strike up conversation. It took two straight minutes of Ben's monosyllabic answers before Threepio got the hint and stopped trying.

After five more minutes and two more turns, Ben said, "Where's Leia?"

Leia. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd called her anything else. He'd thought of her as Mom or Mother or other stuff easily enough, but actually calling her those...he struggled to remember the last time he'd done that. Maybe Christmas? Her birthday? It was hazy, and the fact that Ben couldn't remember such a simple thing bothered him more than he wanted to.

She'd told him she was going to be the one to drive him to his first session.

"Ah," Threepio said, as if surprised Ben had deigned to speak to him at all. His thin wisp of hair seemed to waver in the cool air conditioning of the car, but Ben saw the speck of sweat under his chin. "Madam Organa's various appointments kept her busy, Master Solo. She is...indisposed."

With practiced ease, Ben ignored the now intimate feeling of disappointment those thoughts inspired. He couldn't really blame Leia, not with everything that had been happening. He knew that she'd been spending every waking moment deflecting or protecting him and his friends from investigation after the fire. News outlets had started covering it a few days after the place had finished burning to the ground, and from there came the questions.

Car tracks, eye witness reports, several instances of shaky phone footage, not to mention the ridiculous amount of legal trouble knowingly committing arson with potentially hundreds of people inside would have caused them. Of course, multiple people reported seeing the Falcon that night, which was why Chewbacca, and some people Leia had on both the Coruscant's police force and the local insurance company - it amazed him the kind of people she'd somehow made friends with - had to backdate some not-so legit papers claiming the Falcon had been impounded at the time.

Every day, there was a new stone being turned over, and every day, his mother was on the frontlines, divesting Snoke's feelers and probes with stone-faced aplomb. It didn't help that multiple people of varying levels of importance didn't appreciate having their entertainment turned on them and subsequently being nearly torched alive.

Ben muttered something unintelligible back to Threepio, either a "Thanks" or a "Figured", but he didn't pay attention to which. Instead, he turned his gaze back to the road, and pretended the sting in his belly had more to do with the spicy Thai he'd had the night before instead of the presence or absence of any particular person.

 _Should have just ordered an Uber or something_ , Ben thought, and the thought felt harsher than he expected

"If I may," Threepio began in his reedy voice, as if reading into his thoughts. Before Ben could interrupt to say that  _no,_  he may not, the older man had fallen into a warbling speech punctuated with his usual whistling breath, "She asked me to pass on her utmost apologies that she could not make it today, sir. Apparently that dreadful man officially arrived back from his trip last week and his attempts to discredit you have been more difficult since."

Ah right. Snoke had officially been out of the country this whole time. At some bullshit conference or tour overseas to various martial facilities. Ben had no doubt that the man had some very elaborate fall back plan that was virtually airtight as far as alibis go for him and his followers to prevent repercussions from that night. Nevermind that most international transactions regarding trips and people visited and who went where would be a logistical nightmare for whoever cared to investigate and Ben had no doubt that Snoke was going to get off scot-free.

Still, it surprised Ben to hear that Threepio had been informed. Ben had barely interacted with the man even when young, a surprise considering the articulate talking stick had all but had his own quarters in the house, so to hear that someone else outside of those immediately involved was informed did not sit well with him.

"You can call it what it is, Threepio," Ben replied. His lips had twitched into a cynical jeer that he couldn't tell was directed at either himself or his driver. "The man's trying to get me arrested. Or killed. Whichever would be easier for him."

"Sir!" Threepio gasped, like an old-fashioned heroine from a silent movie, "Please don't joke about such things!"

Ben sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. The between between his shoulders blades hadn't itched in months, but that didn't mean he didn't expect it to pick up again at the worst time possible. "I'm not," he murmured, half lost to his own thoughts, "I'm just being honest."

Ben knew his master -  _former master_ , his rational side reminded - was conniving. He would be happy to see them all on the end of a spit after being bled dry of all their worth for daring to stand against his designs and grand ambition. He also knew that Snoke would be perfectly content with a set of fingers, each from a different person who'd interfered that night.

Leia wasn't just saving Ben and his friends from incarceration on a daily basis. She was making sure no stranger visited them with any untoward intentions. He'd caught the people tailing him and Rey back from the drive-in (after again borrowing Luke's car) one night, just last week, and it was only careful control of his reactions that had stopped Ben from walking up to them and demanding an explanation. He was lucky his mother had been available to pick up a phone call, and to explain the situation, about how they were basically sentries - otherwise Ben didn't know what he would have done.

Rey, of course, knew about their tails - he'd told her almost immediately. He wasn't going to hide anything else from his girlfriend (and  _wow_ , calling her that still took a bit of getting used to) if he could help it. In spite of evidence to the contrary so amusingly provided by both Rey and his Uncle Luke, Ben  _did_  learn from his mistakes. Especially when it came to Rey. He'd broken, or at least bruised, her heart before, and he'd decided the minute she'd kissed him in the cage that he'd do absolutely anything he could to avoid hurting her again.

"Why do you do this?" Ben asked, eager to change the subject. He didn't want to think of the impending cage slowly lowering itself in him and his friends.

"I beg your pardon?" Threepio asked. He looked Ben's way for a moment before turning back to the empty road, ever the diligent driver. He was even going five miles under the posted speed limit, like a good little automaton.

Ben ran a hand through his hair, and grimaced at the feel. He'd worked up a sweat earlier and, in the four hours of nothingness where he'd found himself with nothing to do and an infinity of thoughts to plague him, he'd somehow forgotten to take a shower.

"It's just," Ben started, and tried to put the right words in so that he didn't sound like an ungrateful jerk, "you do all this stuff. All this work for my mother, all the appointments and the driving, and you're basically a live-in butler-"

"I do  _not_  live with Madam Organa!" Threepio interjected, as if that was the part he was most scandalized by. Or maybe the part he wished actually was true.

"Threepio I've seen your place," Ben said. Admittedly, that had been when Ben was seven, but he highly doubted things had changed much in the almost twenty years since. "You live like an ascetic monk. The  _guest room_  Leia keeps at her place has had your clothing there for the last thirty years."

He even made sure to use appropriate finger quotes when stressing "guest room".

"I'll have you know that it's only been twenty seven years, young man," Threepio said somewhat haughtily, once again completely missing the point.

"Regardless," Ben said, "Don't you think it's a little excessive now? Why are you even attaching yourself to her like this?"

Why did she keep Threepio around and not Ben?

Threepio huffed, and for a moment Ben wondered if the man would even have the temerity to chance a scowl in his direction, but as the moments passed Ben realized that was the extent of the man's reaction. An alignment of buildings, with storefronts and signs and various goods hanging out in the window front to entice passersby, told Ben that they'd moved away from the predominantly residential area of the town to what Ben supposed was main street.

The silence was now thick and palpable and Ben wondered if he'd pushed the man's buttons too far for once. He had no doubt that Threepio would keep mum if pressed, but that didn't mean he couldn't be passive aggressive about it either.

Watching his driver, Ben's hands began roaming and eventually gripped each other in quiet suffering. They still ached when it rained, that was never going to go away, but sometimes, when he tensed his hands hard enough, when he strained his grip far enough, the ache flared to a brilliant distracting nova in his mind. It reminded Ben of the ring, of the bestial simplicity of life in the pit, when all he had to worry about we making sure he was standing at the end of the night.

It was easy to distract himself from the churning fog that hung back in his presence of mind. He'd been making an effort, to be more communicative, to talk with Rey about things, but sometimes...sometimes it was hard. Not impossible. Not even difficult. Ben could face the impossible and heaven knows he'd overcome any difficulty, especially with Rey at his side...but the patient, humored air to the taint in his soul made things  _hard_.

 _Probably a good thing I didn't call that Uber,_  Ben thought, not even jesting this time.  _At least I'm not paying for the awkward conversation._

He closed his eyes and tried to banish those thoughts before they turned poisonous. Threepio was doing him a favor.

Doing Leia a favor, some heretofore hushed part of him reminded. Ben was just there, like some package to be stamped and delivered.

"We're here."

With no other preemptive warning, Threepio slowed the car down and parallel parked into an empty spot on the street, jolting slightly as the car, a newer lease that belonged to Leia, went too far and climbed over the curb, shocking Ben as the suspension seemed to jolt him in place. Before Ben could even say anything, and as if on cue, Threepio exploded into a rattling chain of "Oh dear"'s and "Oh no"'s that would have been amusing, if Ben hadn't just banged his head against the inside of the passenger window. The corrective turn and reverse didn't make things any better and Ben found his temple smashing against belt feeder located right by his head this time.

Then, peace. Or rather, as much peace as there could be with Threepio spluttering and begging apologies for being so clumsy and that he didn't mean to, and oh, perhaps they should stop by a hospital to check for concussions instead and-

How the hell had his mother put up with  _this_  for so long?

"I'm sorry," Ben said, once he spotted the microsecond of pause that was Threepio taking a breath to continue speaking. It would have been impressive, if it the man's continued perpetual state of being near a nervous breakdown weren't so exhausting.

Threepio drew himself up and looked bewildered. He looked like a man who'd never been apologized to and now that he was on the receiving end of it, he didn't look all that enthused about it. "I beg your pardon, Master Solo?"

This was a man who'd spent who knows how long working alongside his mother - a man who may as well have been family to her and his late father. Ben had to remind himself of that. He had to consciously remind himself of that so as to not instinctively bare his teeth in the facsimile and ignore the deep and ugly burn that threatened to consume his chest.

 _Master Solo_.

Ben nearly scoffed. He couldn't even pinpoint the exact reason those words pissed him off so much. Maybe it was the innocent but vivid reminder of his time at  _The First Order_ , when he'd been acting as instructor to countless groups of people in how to hurt others. Maybe it was the fact that, though technically qualified, Ben had never felt farther from true mastery of anything in his whole life.

Or maybe it really was just Threepio's voice, said the nasty thought that drifted into his purview like a ragged feather.

Ben swallowed and, resisting every inculcated impulse in his nervous system, he said, "I'm sorry. For jumping on your case. That was...rude of me."

His hands had stopped aching, and Snoke's brand still didn't itch. Ben wished they would. Physical distractions from the hurricane of self-recrimination would've been welcome. It would've given him a chance to submerge himself in the guilt and let the Gordian knot of thoughts and words wash him away like a full moon's tide.

Ben didn't bite the inside of his cheek, too obvious an indicator, and instead found himself flexing and loosing the muscles in his calves. The lactic burn began to build and despite the ridiculousness of the situation Ben's mind unclenched just a little with the familiar feeling rising in his legs.

"Stop that, sir," Threepio said, shifting the car into park and placing a hand on Ben's trembling knee.

Ben was wearing jeans, but even so, his hand felt surprisingly cool. Or maybe it was the man's natural clamminess seeping through the fabric.

"I'm okay," Ben assured, and tried not to think of how it should've been his mother in the driver's seat instead. "I'm okay."

"You most certainly are not," Threepio's voice was soft and it still warbled in the space of the car. It wasn't strong, like Luke's, or joyous like Poe's. It had none of Hux's usual edge and steel to rely on, nor any of Finn's resolve in the face of danger. It was weak and immeasurably flimsy, like a dandelion that would be scattered to the winds if something even so much as blinked at it.

Ben looked out the window and noted the placard to the building, indicating the office and potential residence of a  _Dr. Kaydel K. Connix_ , along with a typeline indicating the name of the practice, something that passed through Ben's visual cortex and straight through the vacuum of perception, because suddenly the only word that mattered on there was one.

Therapist.

His mouth had gone dry. He really should have told Rey about the date of his first visit. But she'd been incredibly busy lately, and then there was the matter of driving and so many other reasons. Too many to count, but each of them as valid and reasonable to a rational mind as any, Ben had assured himself. Nothing to do with the harsh nightmares he'd had when all of the stars had faded away.

"I'm okay," he repeated, and then smiled, because that's what people did when they were getting better. They smiled, right? "She's...she's expecting me, isn't she?"

Threepio flinched, before gesturing to the building outside. "She'll be on the fourth floor. Elevator's to the left."

Ben raised in inquisitive eyebrow. "You're not coming in?"

"Would you like for me to, young sir?"

Ben shook his head, a little surprised. This was already stressful enough without having to listen to the man's mutterings. As nervous and talkative as Threepio got when he went off on a tangent or when he worried about something, he was also incredibly overprotective of his family, much like how a cowardly dog was of its owner.

...and there he went comparing the man to a housepet. Even when trying to compliment Threepio Ben ended up insulting him.

Deciding he'd wasted enough time Ben opened the door and started stepping out of the car. He was stopped by Threepio's hand on his arm. It didn't grip him, because even two months out of practice there was no way Ben wouldn't casually disregard any physical restraint on Threepio's part. Just the cool, clammy and weathered skin against Ben's tense forearm.

"I shan't even attempt to imagine what you've been through," Threepio said, still with trembling and his indecisive tone, "nor what you are thinking right now, young sir, but...it is perfectly acceptable to to be nervous."

"I'm not nervous," Ben lied, without batting an eye.

"Sir," Threepio rebuked in a tone of voice that still somehow came off as an apology, "I may not understand much of the situation, but I do understand fear."

"I'm not a- is there a  _point_  to this, Threepio?" Ben couldn't stop his tone from coming out waspish, and he wondered if his mother knew this was going to happen. He didn't need the added stress of having to deal with the man who'd stuck around his family far longer than Ben ever had. "I have an appointment you know?"

"Yes, yes, I understand," Threepio waved off Ben's concerns airily, and it was twenty years ago all over again, when Ben had been arguing with Threepio about some inane thing and he couldn't help getting frustrated with the man about some equally meaningless matter. It was such a throwback that Ben almost missed Threepio's next few words. "Dr. Connix is certainly expecting you. It's just you asked why I have stayed by your mother's side all these years correct?"

Mute, curious, and still a little desperate to put the meeting off, Ben nodded.

"Because years ago, I learned an important lesson, young man." Threepio fished something out of his pocket. A small four by six inch picture, yellowed with age, folded along the middle, and a little frayed around the edges. He passed it to Ben.

Ben looked at the people in picture. It was a tiny, picture of a large group of people, all gathered in front of the camera. He spotted his uncle Luke, in the foreground, looking so young, so young as to hurt just to see his unwrinkled face. Ben focused on the other figures. There was Chewbacca, lifting an absolutely tiny Maz (who wore a technicolored shirt and looked like she hung out at music festivals) onto his shoulders, missing the bushel of hair that now adorned his face, and almost looking like a different person altogether. Lando was there, looking like a grouch, and glaring at Ben's father, who was in the middle of laughing so hard his eyes were closed. His mother stood next to him, looking up at him and wearing an expression that Ben had often seen back when he'd stuck with them. It was a look that promised a verbal reaming like no other, followed by the traumatizing sight of his parents kissing.

At some point Ben had stopped breathing.

He couldn't even recognize half the people in this picture. Beyond those he knew, there were at least a dozen others, all standing around and lining up looking at the camera or busy talking with the person right next to them.

"I learned that I do  _not_  need to be perfect for the people around me to care about me," Threepio's voice filtered through the pause on Ben's thoughts. "Your mother taught me that, and, quite frankly, I have been forever indebted to her for it."

Ben's eyes drifted over to the sight of his mother's face again. The glare, perfectly capturing the nonsense and insanity of a life with Han Solo would bring her. She was so young in this picture, he noticed. Had they even thought of having him yet? She couldn't have been more than twenty, at least per Threepio's words and the date on the back.

"To put it frankly, young man," Threepio said, for once smiling in a manner that could maybe, possibly,  _vaguely,_ pass off as Organa-Solo in resemblance. "It's okay to not be okay. Even when you are getting better, even when we all are, it is not a sign of weakness to be afraid."

"I know that," Ben replied, but he could hear the next few words in the air before Threepio ever said them.

"There is a difference between knowing it and believing it, young sir." The butler without a cummerbund and vest winked conspiratorially, as if that were some great secret. "Now, I do believe Dr. Connix is awaiting you."

Blinking but recognizing a dismissal when he heard one, Ben bid the man bye as if in a dream and stepped out of the car properly this time. For some reason that escaped him, whether through mental corkscrews or just plain befuddlement, the buildup, the feeling of something sharp against the nape of his neck...was gone.

Ben watched as Threepio waved and then drove off, promising to be back at the scheduled time to pick him up. Leaving Ben in front of the building with nothing but strange feeling of reassurance and an old photograph, still in his hand.

* * *

The middle initial in her title stood for Ko, as Ben found out when he stepped out of the elevator that fed into the tastefully and inoffensively decorated lounge, full of soft hues and colors. There wasn't any music playing, but Ben wouldn't have been surprised to have walked into a medley of relaxing Celtic music or some other equally temperate tunes. There were two people on staff that day, and before he could even think to ask, they waved him in, not even bothering to check him in or ask his name or anything.

He knocked on the right of the two doors beyond the patient lounge, and heard someone inside answer "Come in!" before he'd even landed the second knock.

"Dr. Connix?" he asked, poking his head through but keeping his stare firmly on the ground. He felt foolish just for asking, because who else was going to be patiently waiting for him inside an office which had a fancy placard next to the door with her name on it.

The sound of paper shuffling came, followed by the lower but still feminine voice he heard before asking him to come inside fully.

Carefully, Ben stepped into the office. There was a large window against a sidewall, and he noted the large, comfortable looking chaise that still looked brand new. He kept his gaze firmly on the fixtures around the room as he looked around, noting the paintings that were perfectly balanced with just enough color without giving any hint as to what the owner of them thought about as art. It was a room designed to put people at ease. He'd recognized this easily, and he'd been fully prepared to not let himself fall into the feng-shui trap of furniture arrangements and decorations. Yet, despite his preparedness, he found himself breathing a little more easily in here than he had out in the clinic area.

He still felt more comfortable with closed spaces and only one way out after all.

"Benjamin Solo?" said the woman behind the large mahogany desk. She stood and walked over, smiling softly.

"It's just Ben," he corrected. The last person to call him Benjamin had been Snoke, right before donning him with the title of Kylo Ren, in front of every member of  _The Guard_. The name did not bring fond memories to mind.

She stayed back, neither standoffish or invading his space. Ben had no idea on the quality of her practice, but he found himself raising his estimations of her already.

"Why don't we sit down?" she said, gesturing to the chaise couch and other selected furniture in the center of the room.

She was blonde, with her hair done up in buns, incredibly reminiscent of the style his mother used to wear, in older pictures. He wondered if she'd learned it from her.

Gulping, Ben sat on the edge of the couch, and ignored the maddeningly lucid image of a precipice beneath him.

Connix spoke in the same, warm tone she'd used before, as she said, "Let's get started."

Ben took a deep breath, and nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A movie night, a not-so-surprising surprise, and a welcoming.
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> Attack: We'll get more info on how the group as a whole is adjusting post-Snoke in the next chapter, but things are going to be relatively lighthearted for a little bit. These kids need time to breathe.
> 
> Onfire: Originally the ending scenes were going to show more of Ben's initial therapy session, but I also wanted to address some things that weren't really good to address before, at least in the scenes as we had them planned.
> 
> First, is that Ben is still kind of adjusting. He's got things starting, but he's still falling into a trap of not relying on friends, and we can see that here in how he interacts with Threepio, a man who Ben could be argued to even be jealous of. Threepio won't be too much of a major character but it often takes a lot of people to influence someone, and I figured reminding Ben that it's okay to not be perfect as he adjusts is something that needed to be said. Plus it echoes some old scenes too.
> 
> Second is Snoke. He's "back in the country" and he's ticked. Leia is stonewalling him, but that won't last forever, especially not with the things he'll uncover.  
>  [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	43. Black Belt, Fourth Stripe, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Picking up right where we left off. No new songs on the playlist, but I’ll leave the link anyway.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


Dr. Connix sat in the single-seater cinder-colored lounge chair beside the chaise that Ben leaned over the edge of. The sides of the chair rose up on both sides of her, almost level with her shoulders and he was struck by how physically small she actually was. She couldn't have been much taller than his own mother, but Leia had a force of will and strength that sometimes towered over even the tallest of men, and so it was easier to forget that she was exceptionally short. She had soft features, and placidly patient eyes that watched him from her seat with a yellow notepad on one of the armrests. The curve of her lips made him wonder how old she really was, licensed therapist or not.

He was cataloging her, he dimly realized. It was easier to focus on her than the two women who'd been in the reception area. Outside these walls, there were too many choices and too much space around him. The office he was in was just a different type of cage after all.

"Before we begin," she said, "let me formally introduce myself."

Ben kept silent, watching her.

"My name is Kaydel Connix," she continued, completely at peace with his stare. Despite the immensity of the chair she sat up, instead reclining backwards. "I'm 34, I have two cats, and I like to collect scented candles."

His eyes cut over to the bookshelf behind her desk, where a small collection of the things stood apart from all the books on the rest of the shelves. They clashed a little with the rest of the decorations, but Ben found he didn't mind. It added a little bit of humanity to the carefully balanced serenity of the room.

Drawing his gaze back, Ben met hers briefly before he swallowed and looked down.

"Nice to meet you, Dr. Connix," he said eventually. He wondered how much time had passed already.

"You can call me Kaydel, if you want," she answered. "What can I call you?"

For a single insane moment Ben wondered what she'd say if he told her to call him Kylo. "Just Ben is fine," he replied. His tongue felt heavy with the name, but it was certainly preferable to the  _other_  options.

He'd never been a  _Benjamin,_  and calling him Mr. Solo just made him feel old, which was ridiculous since he was barely twenty-seven. If anything, they made him think of his-

Well. The other names reminded him of exactly why he was sitting in Kaydel's office.

"What did-" he stopped and decided to rephrase the question, "How much has Leia told you?"

"Not much," Kaydel said honestly, peaceful expression breaking with another smile. "I try not to let any other opinions influence my perspective when meeting with clients for the first time. I find that what a person chooses to tell me about themselves says a lot about them."

Ben stared at her, eyes narrowed. He didn't even bother to keep the skepticism out of his voice. "And she just...let you?"

Her head tilted, curiously. His eyes drifted to the buns she kept, so very like his mother that it was inherently suspicious. "Let me?" she asked.

"Tell her no," he deadpanned. He knew his mother - maybe not in the way a son properly should, but he wasn't ignorant to the steaming powerhouse that was a concerned Leia Organa. He'd seen the way people acted in her presence, the way they all stood a little straighter when she was in the room, and how they nearly wiped the scuff off her boots when she left. She made people better just by being there.

People didn't usually tell her no. More often, it was because they didn't  _want_ to.

"Leia's a friend," Kaydel granted with a nod, "However, I can assure you that I've been informed that what's said in this room needs to…" she paused, as if carefully picking her words, "remain in this room. Generally I'd be required to report crimes, but, it's been made clear to me that doing so wouldn't be in anyone's best interest, and I've been assured that things are being handled."

Ben huffed.  _Handled_. Right.

It was of little comfort, knowing that she was breaking the law at his mother's behest. It made the conversation seem all the more private, knowing that word wouldn't reach the authorities about the things he'd done, about the things that had been done in his presence while he stood by, aware and complicit.

"She won't hear anything from me, not unless you want me to keep her informed."

He shook his head, eyeing the untouched notepad beside her. "I don't. Not really."

"Then for now, it'll stay that way." She seemed proud of him for something, or maybe supportive. He couldn't tell too clearly. He was too busy with all the little nonverbal cues littering the office. "Can I get you anything to drink? I'm afraid I've only got water or tea, but you're welcome to it."

He didn't so much as shift in place as he turned to look at the door, not away from her. Looking at her made her more real. Maybe that was cowardly of him, but looking at this complete stranger who knew  _something_  was wrong with him, but not yet  _what_ left him feeling exposed, like something rotten that had been left under the porch but was finally being taken out into the sun.

A quick jolt in his hands told him he'd clenched his fists a little too tightly. With resignation that'd been building for months, he relented, and said, "Tea, please."

She rose from the chair, and he heard her walk behind her desk. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her grab an electric kettle and two mugs from a shelf. She came back around and plugged in the kettle, placing the cup in the center of the coffee table, along with a small container of sugar.

"How are you?" she asked once she situated herself in her chair again. He felt more than heard when she grabbed the notepad and clicked the pen, signaling the true start of the session. The change in the atmosphere was noticeable, at least to him. Or maybe it was only his imagination.

Kaydel looked as at home as he felt uncomfortable.

It took Ben a moment to realize that she was waiting for him to reply, and something small and rabid inside shook with the idea.

"I'm fine."

The words were automatic and safe. Preprogrammed words into his synapses that he didn't even have to parse to know were complete bullshit.

He didn't have to look at her face to know she was thinking the same thing. Or maybe she wasn't? Ben could never grasp the idea of working so closely, so intimately with people outside of a formal and rigid system like Taekwondo. It was completely alien, interacting with strangers outside of that context. Terrifying and strange and impossible for a man like him, who'd dipped so far out to sea that thalassophobia had become a constant state of mind.

"I'm not here to advise you Ben," Kaydel's voice came, filtering through his ears like spiced honey. "I'm not here to tell you anything. If you ever don't feel comfortable talking about a subject, we don't have to."

His hands had reached out and grasped something from the sofa. A pillow. About the size of a small bag, shaggy with this one inch white threads hanging off of the edges. It felt pleasingly exotic to his callused and hurting hands. He kept his stare firmly at the door, superimposing the memory of the cage over his surroundings.

"I don't know if I should talk," he said, haltingly, but finally. It was more than he himself expected to admit.

How do you tell someone you're more comfortable in a cage than in a therapist's office?

"We don't have to talk about anything in particular," Kaydel assured. "Do you have any hobbies?"

Just as before, her words weren't probing or intrusive. He could imagine half a dozen ways her questions could have been rephrased, twisted into something demanding and cruel. Instead of the  _caw_ - _caw_  of the hungry crow that wanted more, all he got was the lazy buzz of the bumblebee, inviting him to a picnic.

But hobbies...he could talk about that. Taekwondo didn't fall under hobbies.

"I like to read," he revealed, and the whisper of fire that'd been building underneath his skin dimmed somewhat at the casual revelation.

"Anything in particular?"

His thoughts immediately jumped to one of the few happy memories he'd had after he left the Dojang. He knew he'd tread dangerously close to crossing some lines that night, thought certainly not on purpose, but waking up with Rey in his arms after an entire day of reading  _Peace Talks_  had been one of the few comforts he'd had before everything started deteriorating.

"Not really," he shrugged, unwilling to share that memory just yet. "Fiction, mostly."

"I'm always looking for a good read," Kaydel offered, "If you have any recommendations, I'm all ears."

He could actually believe it, too. When most people asked recommendations, they didn't really seem care - saying the words for the sake of being polite or to fill the empty space with some measure of feigned interest. He could usually tell when people faked interest and he usually laughed the notion off then, too. The idea of sharing something as oddly personal as a book he enjoyed made his gut clench.

The chirping electronic beep notified them that the tea was ready. Ben waited as the world stopped spinning for Kaydel to grab the kettle and pour the hot water in his cup.

"I've got Lemon and Earl Grey," she said casually, pushing the boxes full of teabags into his field of view. "Nothing non-caffeinated though."

With a grunt, he grabbed one from the custard yellow box and plopped it in his cup. Then, realizing his own ridiculousness, he turned and faced Kaydel once more. Regardless of his circumstances growing up, he knew it was rude to not face his host, especially since he was the one to seek out her help.

They exchanged simple and meaningless words, murmuring what their favorite flavors and how much sugar they each preferred, if any.

After a minute of deliberation, he said out of the blue, "Dresden Files."

Kaydel paused, with her cup halfway to her lips. Her notepad lay in her lap, and already a small storm of of blue ink jumped out at him, but the only reaction that elicited in him was the wonder of how she'd written so much already. It looked like a mass of scribbles to him, but it clearly made some sense to her.

"It's a book series," Ben explained his earlier comment.

He watched her grab the pen and write down something else.

"I'll look into it," she said, clearly pleased. With what, he couldn't tell.

"Don't be put off by the first few books," he continued, some spark he'd thought long extinguished catching once more, "It's weird but...but it's not bad. They get better."

He watched her reaction, in the carefully raised eyebrow and controlled crinkle of her eyes.

"You seem passionate about it," Kaydel noted, taking another sip from her tea and placing it in front of her. "Do you get to read much, Ben?"

He and Rey often had quiet evenings, just reading, side-by-side. He'd been surprised at first, when she'd requested it one night he'd come to pick her up for a date - if they could just stay inside and read together instead. They'd even taken to reading aloud to each other now and then, and the action almost always sent the other into a deep soothing sleep that left the reader feeling cricks in their neck, but unwilling to move for fear of disturbing whichever one of them was sleeping..

"I do now," he said.

He should have stopped at just two words.

"Did you not have a chance to before?" Kaydel asked, and suddenly he could practically see the bright red lettering hovering over her, like an intro title for a video game character, reminding him she was a  _therapist._

"I was busy before," he shot back, wincing at his own tone. His next words were considerably more honey than vinegar. "Sorry, I- I had to get rid of a lot of my books."

He'd recovered much of his possessions from storage, thankfully, but there were many things that he'd lost too. Clothing predominantly, but at least half his books had gone missing while in storage. He'd built up a small collection when he'd been living on his own, and now, years later, he was down to less than he'd started when he'd moved out.

Kaydel didn't lean in, for which he was grateful. He recognized the open and communicative body language, but for a moment he was worried she was going to inch closer and potentially breach the immense personal bubble that Ben had erected around himself. She did, however, gently finish what was left in her teacup before letting it  _clink_  against the table, and turn to him, fully attentive.

"Does the reason for that have to do with why you decided to come visit me?" she asked, a little blunt, a little on-the-nose, but refreshingly upfront.

He eyed her, working through the mental evaluation he had of her once more. Kaydel was small, blonde, and a little more conniving than he'd initially estimated her to be, but she was strong. She wasn't like him, a person who could break faces and bodies with years of ingrained practice and instinct, and she wasn't like his mother, like how Ben thought she'd be. When Leia talked, people listened.

When Kaydel talked, people talked  _back_.

Did she realize how incredibly bizarre that was, Ben wondered.

Ben licked his lips considering how he should answer. He couldn't tell if he liked Kaydel yet or not. He'd first thought her as lukewarm, maybe a little tepid in how she approached him, offering tea, but that was no reason to dislike someone who was only trying to help. He was glad she'd been upfront about Leia's involvement, as he'd have hated the thought of that hanging over their discussion without being addressed from the get-go.

The press of the drums in his chest was hard and roaring. He abandoned the teacup he'd been drinking out of and simply pressed his hands into the pillow that was now in his lap, and didn't dare look up to see whatever mysterious or heedful expression she wore.

"It's part of the reason," Ben said, and the words tore at his lungs to admit it. He couldn't imagine the cage anymore, he couldn't hear the booms in his head, and the emptiness of the room was immense and frightening. There was no opponent for him to face, no rhythm to lose himself in. Just a cup of rapidly cooling tea and the echo of his words.

He fidgeted, running a hand through his hair again, feeling as oily on the inside as the sweaty mess he was on the outside. He could feel Kaydel's careful consideration of his expression. He knew what he'd find if he met her eyes - something maybe not compassionate, but far and away removed from the judgment he deserved.

"I haven't really had a lot of time to read until recently," he confessed, feeling the need to explain even if he didn't know why. "My girlfriend, Rey...she's been helping me get back into it."

"Oh?"

For a moment, he hesitated. Kaydel was the first person outside of his immediate social circle or family that had heard him call Rey his  _girlfriend_. There was no fanfare, no rush, no thrill of excitement to the statement, and he wondered if he should feel bad about that, as if he'd missed an important milestone. Idly, he cracked the knuckles in his left fist, basking in the brief pain before each snap.

"She's the best," Ben whispered, as if afraid it'd turn false if said too loud. "She, and my friends, really - they're all amazing. Crazy, but..."

Amazing wasn't the right word. Ben wasn't even sure there was a word to describe what they were. Stupid, probably, but that was insulting to each of them. They'd all gone to get him that night, knowing the dangers, knowing and then cracking jokes the whole time too, because they were invincible. Not literally. They were each just as breakable as any human being, but it astonished him - astonished and distraught him that they couldn't see the strings of fate that protected them from the monsters and the talons in Alistair Snoke's throne room.

And now he could feel it too, like some invisible security blanket nestling over his shoulders, adorning him like a cape. He was under that protection, had been since the moment they all hugged inside the locker room and he realized that people actually  _cared_. He was probably being foolish, imagining such things, but it was the only comparison he could make.

In the moments he'd had to himself, those moments when Rey and Luke had offered him some much needed alone time, he'd wondered if he was dreaming. If he hadn't perhaps gotten kicked in the head one too many times and broken something essential up top, such that he now lived in a world where the impossible was real.

"Do you have a lot of friends, Ben?" Kaydel attempted.

"More than I deserve." No bitterness, only awe.

"Why do you think that?"

"Because," Ben cleared his throat, feeling incredibly parched even though he'd almost finished his drink, "Because people like me don't have friends. Not ones that matter, at any rate."

And  _God,_  did they matter. He hadn't had much of a chance to talk with the others, so consumed with his own problems in the month or so since his return, but that didn't mean he'd forgotten about them. It was a little like having someone in the room, but not seeing them - they were there on the edge of his awareness, and much like any horror movie buff would tell you, the knowledge that there was something there was so much more scarier than knowing what that something was.

Because they cared, and it was  _terrifying._ Ben wanted to grab them sometimes and shake them, because clearly there was something wrong with their brains if they were seeing something worth keeping around in him. Something other than the man who'd eagerly - no,  _happily_ \- spat on a decade of teachings just to please his brand new boss.

"It sounds like you care a lot about them," Kaydel noted. Her voice was still honeyed, and inviting, and Ben wondered if he should worry about her too. How did she not see what a mess he was?

"I trust them," he said, low and raw. "I don't always get along with them-" he remembered the fond bickering between him and Hux about some trivial crap, "-and they frustrate the hell out of me sometimes-" Rey's empty-headed facade whenever he brought up the topic of returning the Falcon to her came to mind, "-but I trust them. More than I trust myself."

He closed his eyes and thought back to the circle of spears pinning them down. Sometimes he swore he could still feel the press of the blade against his chest. He wanted to feel regret for the decision he'd made then, but he couldn't.

Trusting his friends was the least he could do.

"I did some bad things," Ben breathed, aware of the tar that threatened to erupt in his heart. Bad didn't even begin to cover it. He'd never gone out of his way to injure people, he'd always waited for the next opponent, but he may as well have been a cog in the meat-packing factory for all the innocence it afforded him. He'd lost himself in the fight more than once, and as unfair as it was, other people had always paid the price. "But I don't want to do them anymore."

* * *

In celebration of the start of their Sophomore year (or, perhaps, in mourning of the end of summer), Rey and Rose decided to host a movie night, deciding that they may as well have a bit more fun before homework kicked back in and monopolized their weekends with its drudgery again. Thankfully Rey only had a morning class on Fridays, so she'd grabbed all the movie night essentials (junk food, mostly) while she waited around for Rose's 11 AM to let out.

Sadly, the Falcon was still under repair. Rey desperately missed the old car, but the sight of Ben's gleeful face as they'd sheared down the interstate after escaping hell was still vivid in her mind, and she knew that her time with the old girl was over. Thankfully, Chewie had managed to find a halfway decent Volvo for her and she'd bought it with some of the money she'd saved up from working at Maz's. It was a bit old, but not nearly as old as the Falcon, and it was perfectly driveable, so she and Rose had started carpooling to classes again. Even better, the new car actually had a jack to connect her phone, so she didn't have to burn CDs like some character from a 90's throwback movie.

Rey adjusted one of her buns as she leaned against the old Volvo, and used one hand to type out a hurried text to Phasma, who was likely just getting off her shift at the diner.

> Rey:  _Leaving campus soon, wanna meet up at our place and start early?_
> 
> Queen Bitch:  _I can be there at 1, give me time to shower._
> 
> Queen Bitch:  _What are the odds that we can change this gremlin's mind about rollerskates?_

Rey snorted, and then full-on cackled before texting Phasma the sad news that she'd spent years trying to do just that. The woman replied with a few choice words, and Rey couldn't help but laugh. She'd been dealing with the skates for years, and while she probably should have been more sympathetic to Phasma's plight, she also distinctly remembered her friend telling her  _woman up and stop bitching_  one time when she came in, specifically to annoy Rey while on duty.

"Hey, sorry," Rose shouted, nearly running over an ambling cyclist as she speed-walked across the plaza to the car, "Class ran a bit late, and I had to stay after to ask about-"

"Don't worry," she interrupted with a smile, waving away her friend's apologies, "Seriously Rose, I'm just glad it's Friday. Ready for movie night?"

The girls climbed into the front of the car and Rose beamed over at her. "You have  _no_  idea. Did you pick any movies? And did Poe ever text back?"

Rey pulled out of the spot and headed for their apartment building, answering, "Yep, he and Finn are both on-board for tonight, so it'll be the whole group. And no," she frowned, "I haven't even thought about what to watch, actually, but Phas is meeting us at the apartment around one, so we'll have a few hours to decide. Hux isn't going to make it 'til five, Poe and Finn are coming after their last classes, so...four-thirty-ish? And Ben's in a session this afternoon, so probably five-ish for him, too."

"So just the girls for a while?" Rose grinned, "Can I just say - and, sorry for the sappiness," she paused, and her voice got a bit soft, "I kinda love that our horribad-movie fridays have gotten bigger. I mean, I was a little hesitant during that first one, when we added Poe, because you and Finn and I had been so close, but…" she sighed, "I kinda love our friend group."

Rey nodded, understanding completely. She still remembered the gut-clenching fear she'd felt when she thought the friendship between her and Rose would crumble without their shared experience in Taekwondo. She'd never been more happy to be proven wrong. "I know what you mean," she finally replied, glancing over at her friend to give her a quick smile, and then laughed, joking, "Phasma's still nuts, though."

"Hmm," Rose considered it, a strange little smile on her face. She stretched the word for all its worth and then commented, "Actually I think you're the one who's nuts. At least Phasma's never willingly walked into a cage fight."

"Uh, she helped burn a building down, does that count?"

After a moment of silence, they both burst out laughing. Rey still wasn't entirely sure when  _laughter_  had become an acceptable response to the whole fiasco they'd been through, but at least it seemed healthier than obsessing over the nightmares she still had occasionally. Thankfully, Ben had spent more time sleeping over (with Rose's approval, of course), and the dreams had become considerably less common, especially when she slept in his arms.

Of course, Luke had eventually done the  _dad_  thing, maybe a few weeks after the awkward diner lunch they'd all had. One day, while Ben had been busy at the garage (and  _oh_  what a joy it was to see him in a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and just a smudge of something dirty along his cheek), Luke had suggested he and Rey get lunch after an early morning practice he'd hosted, and she'd happily agreed. Once they'd gotten their food, he'd looked at her seriously, more gravely than she'd seen from him in a while. For a moment she'd worried that she'd done something wrong when he got quiet (a bad habit that she didn't know if she'd ever grow out of), and then he'd given her a soft smile as he asked, as gentle as a cloud trailing sky, "Are you happy?"

She hadn't known what to say, or how to react or process the question that was startling in its honesty. He'd followed up, clarifying his intentions.

"I know I may have come across as unsupportive, with you and Ben, but that's not the case." He'd looked almost bashful, but obviously that had just been her imagination because she'd never heard of Luke being bashful about anything. "I just want to make sure you're happy. So, does Ben make you happy?"

She'd found she couldn't help but give him a massive smile, and she'd gushed about how wonderful dating Ben was, and after a relieved sigh from Luke, that'd been the end of  _that_  conversation. Despite the very visible effort he'd put in to show his support, it was clear he was still adjusting to the idea. After that though, it seemed as though Luke had gotten progressively more comfortable with it.

It was still taking some getting used to, though - the idea that Ben was  _hers_  now. Not just her best friend. Not just her Master's nephew. He was  _hers_ , and she could just kiss him whenever they wanted, and when one of them was having a bad day they could sleep in the other's arms, and...her heart warmed at the thought of the night they'd had before- the memory of holding him as tightly as she could while they rocked slowly against each other, lips busy in an attempt to consume as tingles shot up her spine-

Rose interrupted her thoughts, which were quickly devolving into daydreams, by asking how her classes were going, and Rey tried not to blush. The rest of their drive from campus to the apartment building was mostly filled with inane chatter, and when they parked and carried the massive amount of junk food Rey had purchased inside the building, a tall (potentially insane) blonde was standing outside their apartment door, wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, carrying a handle of what Rey guessed was vodka.

"Good afternoon, my lovely little cinnamon rolls," she sang, winking and raising the handle in greeting. "Now c'mon, lemme in so I may mourn my innocence in private?"

Rey rolled her eyes, banged her mailbox door so it would open, and was perfectly droll when she said, "Bad day at work?"

"I hate you and everything you stand for," Phasma shot back ever-so cheerfully.

Rose snorted, and raised an eyebrow as she climbed the three steps from the entrance to the foyer. She slung her bag over her shoulders, and nearly unbalanced herself with the weight, but found purchase against banister of the stairs close by.

Phasma laughed. Rey, being the better of the two, only giggled for maybe a few seconds at the harried look in Rose's face.

With how often she teased Rey and Ben - including one particularly awkward afternoon when she'd come home early on a day Rey was skipping a class and innocently reminded them that she still had to eat at the table she'd found them on... _or_  another time when she'd not-so-subtly asked why they were suddenly out of whipped cream - Rey thought Rose could do with a lesson in embarrassment or two.

"I know where you both live," Rose vowed to them, somewhat vaguely. She drew herself up and looked at the bottle in Phasma's hands. "Isn't it a bit early for vodka?"

"It's never too early for vodka when you work for Maz," Rey said dryly, unlocking the door.

Phasma threw her head back in laughter, following the girls into their apartment and said, "I  _knew_  I liked you. Well, maybe a little less now. Y'know, you could have warned me about the old bat before I took the job. I had no idea she was so insane. She got out the broom today, by the way."

Rey winced, commiserating in the chagrin in her voice. Maz didn't really hit them with the broom, but regardless of however hard they tried, she was always there, poking prodding, scratching at their legs with the thistles, or even just general sweeping in their vicinity. It made the job so much harder, even if it did smarten them up on skates faster than anything. "I think that means she likes you," she offered, only half-joking.

The woman laughed, thankfully, and just shook her head, muttering something about crazy old loons. She followed Rey into the kitchen and the two of them unpacked all the bags of carb-filled goodness that she'd bought that morning while Rose begged off to change into pajamas.

"Oh perfect," Phasma crooned, pulling out bottles of ginger beer, "You remembered!"

"Well, you  _did_  say you were going to finally explain what a moscow mule is," Rey shrugged. "I got the lime syrup stuff, too."

Phasma sighed, and leaned against the counter, biting at her lip. "Y'know, I'm totally going to hell for corrupting you. We really should be waiting a few years before we become drinking buddies."

"If anyone's corrupted me, it's Ben," Rey replied, rolling her eyes, completely ignoring the grossed-out look her friend gave her. "And after the sort of shit we've done together, drinking is hardly the worst thing. At least it's not a felony, unlike arson. Plus, I got drunk  _all_  on my own the first time. Or, well, I guess  _technically_ Poe handed me the cup, but-"

"Alright, alright, I guess I don't feel  _that_  bad," Phasma interrupted, "Just, let's limit the  _Ben corrupting you_  talk, yeah?" She shuddered dramatically, and said, "I'm glad you two are happy, sugar cookie, but I  _never_  need to hear the details."

"Well then avoid sleeping over here," Rose quipped, joining them in the kitchen. "Seriously, I bought earplugs after the first night."

The worst part was, she really had. A family pack too, and she'd left the box out in the middle of the living room, perfectly aware that Rey would find it and understand why it was necessary.

Rey just  _knew_  she'd turned a lovely shade of red, or at least pink, and mumbled her billionth apology.

Rose laughed again, and waved her off. "Could be worse. At least he always makes breakfast." Then she got a devilish gleam in her eyes and asked teasingly, "I've got to know, though. Is he-" she hesitated, and Rey had a terrible feeling she knew exactly what her friend was about to ask, " _...proportional?"_

"I'm not nearly drunk enough to hear the answer to that," Phasma said quickly, looking longingly at the handle of vodka she'd placed on the counter. "Just...if we're talking about that, let me make us some drinks? Please?"

"We're  _not_  talking about that," Rey said quickly, shooting Rose a look she hoped screamed  _don't even try to ask again._

"Oh, fine," Rose sighed dramatically, "You're no fun."

Phasma snorted, and shot Rey a grateful look, "Well, I, for one, am relieved. There are some things you just don't need to know about your best friends." She thought for a minute, and quirked an eyebrow as she asked teasingly, "I mean, you guys probably wouldn't appreciate it if I started talking about Hux-"

"You'd probably be right," Rey said quickly.

At the same time, Rose hummed thoughtfully, and smirked. "I'm all ears."

Rey looked over at her friend in surprise, blinking. After a moment, things got even  _more_  weird as Phasma made a sort of low, approving noise, and grinned, "Well, aren't you just a  _delicious_  little cookie?"

"Let me guess," Rose winked, "You'd just  _love_  to eat me up?"

What the hell was going on? Rey glanced back and forth between her two friends, more confused than anything as she watched them...well, size each other up, apparently. Finally, her brow furrowed, and she asked, in a curious, thoroughly weirded-out voice, "Are- are you two  _flirting?"_

Phasma just cracked a smile and met Rey's eyes, then shrugged, and ignored her question, saying "C'mon cinnamon buns, let's make some drinks."

When Rey looked over at Rose, trying to figure out what the hell she'd just witnessed, her friend was just smiling mysteriously.

* * *

Thanks to Phasma, Rey discovered that alcohol didn't  _need_  to taste like fruity toxic waste, and she made a mental note to avoid college parties in the future. The drink Phasma had made her was sort of spicy, but didn't burn in the horrible way the spiked punch had the first time she'd gotten drunk.

Phasma had insisted on making a quick toast, to the "best, and most insane cinnamon rolls she'd had the pleasure of meeting," and they'd all clinked their glasses, dissolving into giggles within seconds. Sometime during round two of the moscow mules, they'd decided to scour Netflix for movie options, and when they got to a particular horror movie, Rose's eyes went wide.

Rey just  _knew_  she'd picked the most amazing, best roommate-friend  _ever_  when a devilishly-mischievous smirk grew slowly on Rose's face, and she gestured at the screen. "Guys, we  _need_ to watch this tonight."

Phasma craned her neck from where she was laying, on a pile of pillows on the floor, with her feet in Rey's lap, and started cackling almost immediately. "Oh yes," she breathed through near tear-levels of laughter, "Yes, Rose, I could  _kiss_ you, that's brilliant."

"Mm, maybe make me another drink first," Rose snarked back, shooting the woman a wink.

Rey was still a little surprised by their interactions, but took a long drink of the wonderful creation that was making her brain fuzzy and wonderful and warm, and looked up at the screen.

She frowned. "I haven't seen this one. What is it?"

Phasma rolled her head back and gave Rey a full, toothy, maniacal grin, "Let's just say  _we'll_  appreciate it a lot more than the men. And Rose definitely won't need earplugs tonight."

A loud belly laugh came from Rose, "Is  _that_  all it would take? I should just keep it playing on repeat."

"You know," Rey said, feeling a tad peeved at being left out of the secret conversation happening in her presence. She struggled for the right words, each one just out of reach enough to taunt her inebriated brain with its significance. At last she finished with, "You guys suck."

"You need new friends," Rose agreed. She was nodding vigorously and her hair kept flailing up and down in front of her.

"Better ones," Phasma pitched in, reaching up and high-fiving Rose. Or trying to. Rose's arm wobbled forwards in a uncertain palming gesture that looked vaguely inappropriate. "You're such a delicate, and sensitive flower. I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings."

Rey's glare probably would have been more intimidating if she could have felt her cheeks and been sure she was scowling.

"If it makes you feel better," Rose said, giggling, "I think I've gotten used to it. Now I start to worry when I  _don't_  hear anything. I start wondering if one of you has died or something."

Instead of responding, Rey slammed her eyes shut and chugged the rest of the glass, still marveling at the fact that it didn't burn, and she nearly choked on the drink as she heard Phasma say suggestively, "Y'know, whenever the lovebirds are keeping you up, you can always come crash with Hux and I. We've got plenty of room."

Rey started hacking in full when Rose grinned and waggled her eyebrows.

Phasma just tossed her head back in roaring laughter at Rey's reaction and got up to make them more drinks.

By the time the men arrived, all within twenty minutes or so, they were fully trashed, and Rey was nearly on top of Phasma as the two laughed hysterically at some nonsensical gibberish Rose had said about one of her professors looking like an evil version of Master Luke.

Ben stood in the doorway with his arms crossed, next to Hux, who looked more than a little bewildered and amused. Poe and Finn had gone into the kitchen to set down all the pizzas they'd picked up, both just giving the girls identical glances that Rey thought screamed  _Really, you started without us?_

She, again, cracked up in laughter when she caught Phasma's eyes (for what reason, she really didn't know) and the woman followed her, letting out loud, barking laughs as they kept trying not to spill their drinks.

"Your fiance is a terrible influence on my girlfriend," Ben drawled, glancing over at Hux, who just snorted.

Before Hux could reply further, Phasma piped up and said, "I am  _not_. Of the two of us, which one do you think has properly corrupted her?"

"Loudly and repeatedly," Rose added unashamedly, just before bursting into giggles as she leaned against Rey, who was far too drunk to bother blushing.

"Ohhhkay," Ben chuckled, "you three are really drunk, huh?"

"Maybe, but she's not wrong," Rey laughed, tossing back the rest of her drink.

Ben clapped his hand to his face, much to her amusement, and finally sighed and shook his head. He walked over to where the three of them were piled on the couch and took Rey's hand, gently pulling her up. She wobbled on her feet and he wrapped an arm around her, cupping her cheek as he kissed her forehead, and asked, "Alright, how much did you give her, Phas?"

Rey answered instead, with a shrug, and said, "I lost count after three." Then she frowned, and said to herself, "Or...four?"

"Oh, great," Ben muttered, a little sarcastically, and then scooped her up into his arms and carried Rey into the kitchen. She didn't bother protesting, because her mind was focused on a mix of Phasma and Rose's laughs at Ben's actions, and how nice it was to be in his arms. "Well," he sighed, "at least you're a lot more conscious than you were last time you got drunk. What'd you have to eat this afternoon?"

"We were waiting for you guys," Phasma shouted from the living room. "We've been drinking and-  _Rose, that's my drink, hands off! -_ mostly eating chips."

Ben huffed, "Okay, you need water. Lots of water. And pizza."

She was about to sneak in the words "and sex" in there too before (thank  _God)_  some higher mental faculty took the wheel and stopped her. But she'd been lusting after this stupid, gorgeous, man for years, and she wasn't going to stop just because they'd finally christened her bed. And the floor. And the shower. And the table. And a few walls.

He set her on the counter and grabbed a glass to pour her water, then looked back at Finn and Poe, "Hey, guys, mind getting Rose and Phas some water and pizza? I think they got a lot more drunk than they planned."

Rey beamed up at him and reached up to run her fingers through his hair, ignoring the water he held out for her. "You're the  _best_ , Ben. Do I say that enough? You know I'm  _completely_  in love with you, right?"

He snorted, and then smiled softly down at her, placing the water on the counter next to her. "Yeah, sweetheart, I love you too. You have no idea how much," he said, kissing her forehead again. Then he leaned back, and shook his head, "Now, would you please drink some water?"

* * *

As it turned out, Ben was completely right, and Rey felt considerably more sober after an hour, two glasses of water, and pizza. Hux had helped Poe and Finn distribute pizza and water to the other two, and they all sat, munching on pizza and various other foods, and while they were in the kitchen Ben had stashed the vodka on top of the fridge where only he or Phasma could reach it.

Rey was fine with that, and settled comfortably next to him on the floor, leaning against a pile of pillows. Her head was starting to pound, but Ben, lifesaver that he was, had already gotten her ibuprofen.

"So, what are we watching?" Hux asked. He was sitting between Phasma and Rose on the couch and it seemed he'd had a nearly impossible time separating the two of them. "Did you three miscreants manage to pick something out, or were you too busy being bad influences on each other?"

Phasma grinned evilly, for a moment, but schooled her expression back to something neutral when he looked at her. "We picked something," she said casually, "Have you heard of Teeth? I think you'll  _love_  it."

Rey noticed Rose clap a hand over her mouth, probably to stop from laughing, and she narrowed her eyes at them. They hadn't told her what the movie was, but she was beyond curious at this point.

"Haven't heard of it," Hux shrugged. None of the other guys seemed to react either, and Phasma kept her expression steady as he said, "Well, I'll put it on."

Maybe half an hour in, Rey figured out why the movie had been chosen, and watched with malevolent glee as Hux and Ben cringed, jumped, and whispered respectively, " _What the fuck,"_ and " _Oh, fuck no."_

Ben glanced back at Phasma in horror as he asked, "Phas, what hell? Why- what-"

"I'm with him," Hux said quickly, pausing the movie. "What the hell made you pick this movie?"

Finally, the women in the room burst out laughing while Hux and Ben just sat there, looking beyond horrified. Rey watched as Ben looked over at Poe and Finn, asking, "Why are you guys not freaked out? This is a guy's worst nightmare."

Finn shrugged. "Uh, vagina dentata? Yeah, not really an issue for us, man."

Rey laughed as she watched Poe smirk and fist-bump him.

"You three have officially lost movie-picking privileges," Hux ranted, thin splotches of color in his cheeks. Rey couldn't tell if it was for extra effect, but he shuddered. "Never again. Never. This is fucking horrifying. You three should be ashamed of yourselves."

There was a brief pause as the girls all looked at each other, each keeping their expressions under control as best as they could. Sister solidarity formed through dubious and copious amount of alcohol consumption came to the forefront of Rey's mind, and she knew one of them needed to say something.

The fact that it ended up being Rose, and the fact that it didn't surprise her as much as it should have told Rey that she'd been hanging around these idiots for  _far_  too long.

"Are you kinkshaming me now, Hux?" Rose asked sweetly, but with a perfectly calculated amount of innocence for maximum impact.

Hux choked, seeing the sweet, adorable, and innocent look on Rose's face.

"That," he said, and paused, looking between the wicked and mirthful stare of his fiancee and the petite girl staring up at him, "I- uh- ...huh." He blushed, properly this time. "That is- I mean-"

And that's when everyone lost it. Poe and Finn started whooping, and fist-bumped Rose, whose last contribution to that exchange was a salacious wink that was only magnified by the fact that her head was in Phasma's lap. Hux sputtered, but was eventually drawn into a "shut-up" kiss via Phasma.

Ben turned and gave Rey a look as though she'd completely betrayed him and she snorted, then kissed his cheek. "No teeth, I promise."

He still looked a bit shaken.

* * *

Ben took a deep breath as he and Rey stepped out of her apartment building and into the cool late-October air. He'd gotten used to the walk between Luke's and Rey's pretty quickly, especially since it was less than a ten minute walk - the Falcon was his now, just as it'd been intended, and somehow he still hadn't wrapped his mind around that. At Kaydel's encouragement, he'd finally started working on the old car...until recently, he'd kept telling Chewie and Lando he wanted experience working on other cars before he tried fixing up the Falcon.

They'd accepted his excuse, putting him to work with five regular shifts a week, and the excuse was a valid one, but the reality was, Ben knew she didn't need that much work, and once it was done, well...the Falcon would be his.

Ben wasn't really sure he was ready for that.

Kaydel didn't pressure him or criticize the decision, fortunately, for which he was grateful, especially since the subject matter of the Falcon itself was pretty touchy. They were getting there, and Ben had fallen into a rhythm of weekly meetings, plus the fairly regular bi-weekly meeting, adding to a grand total of three sessions every two weeks. He was comfortable talking about some things, and others not so much, but she'd never pressed the issue either way. Snoke came up at least once every session now, which was both the best and worst part. They never stayed on him for too long because Ben always changed the subject to something a little easier to talk about, though still tangentially related.

He still hadn't talked about the origins of the brand, something he'd revealed with an almost callous disregard in their latest session, showing her the top of his back after pulling down his collar. It was coming though, and what was perhaps the most bizarre was that it was  _Ben_  leading the talking. Or, at least it felt that way.

For the first month or so of his sessions, he'd kept things mostly to himself, only sharing with Rey the sort of nightmares he'd been having. She was having them too, and she was able to share her thoughts and feelings so freely that he felt comfortable enough to admit to having dreams filled with the feeling of drums under his skin and the urge to clench his fists so hard it'd snap him out of the dream that was currently his life.

He hadn't told her much else until one Friday in early October, when a particular lengthy session with Kaydel had involved him admitting he hadn't even thought twice about putting himself in front of the spear. That it had come as second nature to him as breathing.

Kaydel's silky questions had scraped at his skin, but she didn't do it out of malice. No, she let him stay still, and had offered another cup of tea, waiting for him to continue. He did. Eventually.

The fact that his mother had happened to pick him up after (for the first time) had just made things that much more heavy. The plan that afternoon had been to return to Luke's and maybe meet Rey that night for dinner, but once he got in the car with Le-  _his mother_ , he hadn't been able to do much but ask her to drop him off at Rey's.

His mother hadn't asked why he was such a mess. She'd just nodded, and patted his shoulder, and told him she loved him.

He'd been a little too drained to dispute it, even if it would have only been in his head. He let the notion sit there for the entire drive. The words had been said a little stilted, a touch too formal, but that was his relationship with his mother, and he was grateful for the familiarity.

When he'd arrived at Rey's door, she'd just gotten home from training with Luke and when she opened the door for him she was sweaty and maybe grumpy and tired and...she was easily the best thing he'd seen all day. It had just taken a single look for her to know what he needed, and despite the fact that she probably felt gross from training, she'd let him wrap her in a massive hug, and her arms had tightened around him as he surprised himself by letting out a sob.

After a moment, Rey had pulled back slowly, and looked up at him, wiping a tear from his cheek as she softly asked him to join her in a shower. He'd followed her like a lost puppy and even let her wash his hair, and they'd probably used up all the buildings' hot water just holding each other as it fell on them, and as they both let tears mix with shower water.

If Ben needed to pinpoint the day things had started getting better, it would have been that day. After that, he'd started telling Rey more. Maybe not quite as much as he was telling Hux, but  _that_  was the day he truly started believing that she wasn't going to eventually realize what a mess he was and decide he wasn't worth dealing with.

"Are you nervous?" she asked quietly, breaking him from his thoughts of the last couple of months.

He smiled softly over at her and said honestly, "Yeah. A little. But I shouldn't be. If he says no, he says no. Just because I think I'm ready doesn't mean he'll agree."

Rey hesitated and asked, " _Do_  you think you're ready? Nobody would blame you if you weren't. Phasma hasn't even started training again. You  _know_  I'd love to have you back at the Dojang, but that doesn't mean you can't take more time."

"I know," he nodded, tightening his grip around her shoulders, "I know, sweetheart, but I miss it. I haven't trained with Uncle Luke in years, and I miss Taekwondo.  _Real_  Taekwondo."

He'd called it that a few times already. It made the experience of his time at  _The First Order_  seem a little more fake and a lot easier to bear. As if he'd been talking about himself, in a way.

Her smile could have lit up the darkest corners of the universe, and Ben found himself thinking for the first time that he was truly thankful she'd chosen to love him.

* * *

Rey realized halfway into the walk to Luke's that she'd been foolish not to bring a proper jacket, but  _oh what a shame_ , it gave her a lovely excuse to tuck under Ben's arm and steal some of his body heat. The short walk to Luke's went quickly, and in no time they were climbing the stairs to the apartment over the Dojang.

Ben had been living there for a few months, and Rey was pleasantly surprised that things between him and Luke had been going so well. She hadn't heard a complaint from either of them, except perhaps a few grumbles from Luke about the amount of hair products Ben kept around, but otherwise, the adjustment seemed to have gone easily. Of course, it was possible that had been partially because Ben was spending half the nights at her place, but still, she considered it an unexpected success.

She reluctantly pulled out of his arms so he could get his keys from his pocket and unlock the door, and when the door opened they were greeted by a surprising, and yet simultaneously  _unsurprising_  view.

Luke was sitting at the breakfast table in sweats and a nerdy t-shirt (his usual pajamas) eating breakfast, just as they'd expected he'd be doing on a Saturday morning. What they  _hadn't_  expected was for Principal Holdo to be sitting next to him, also in pajama pants and a sweater, her hair down from its usual style, looking as though this was a normal weekend activity, and lacking all the bearing and authority Rey had instinctively associated with her former principal.

Maybe this  _was_  routine for them. After all, Rey  _had_  always suspected there was something going on between them.

She glanced up at Ben as he huffed quietly, and watched as a saucy grin formed on his face. "Good morning," he said in the slow, thoroughly amused voice of a man who'd finally been proven correct, "so,  _definitely_  not dating anyone, then, Uncle Luke?"

Luke gave Principal Holdo a  _look_  and just shook his head.

"Uh, hi Principal Holdo," Rey said, waving awkwardly.

The woman huffed quietly over her coffee mug and said, "At this point, Rey, you can just call me Amilyn."

Ben snorted. "So uh, I'm assuming you two were just discussing the fine points of educating youngsters?"

"Something like that," Luke grumbled, and Rey almost died laughing at the  _oh really_  look Amilyn and Ben shot him.

"Lemme guess," Rey smirked, "did you cover health class and phys ed?"

Amilyn put her mug down and groaned into her hands, muttering to Luke, "Seeing as how I'm no longer their principal, I'm just going to come right out and say it: I think I hate your kids."

Luke, who'd been holding a butter knife with some jam on the end, slumped. "Yeah, you're not the first person to tell me that."

"Why do the sarcastic, snarky ones always seem to seek you out?"

Luke sighed, and replied dryly, "I really don't know." There was a beat of silence, and then he said, "I think I hate them, too."

"So uh...have a good night?" Ben asked, looking like Christmas had come early.

"Oh, like you're one to talk," Amilyn piped up. "I think we both know  _you_  didn't sleep here last night."

Ben chuckled, and said, "You're right, I didn't, but you knowing that  _sorta'_  implies you  _did_  sleep here, doesn't it?"

Amilyn rolled her eyes, and was about to say something when Luke grimaced and interrupted her, "Don't answer the troll, you'll just give him more material to work with." He sighed, and crossed his arms. "Alright you devil-children, what do you want?"

Rey bit her lip, and looked over at Ben, whose previously amused look had disappeared. It its place was a slightly nervous, but calm expression. She watched as he took a deep breath, and finally said, "I want to come back, Uncle Luke. To the Dojang, I mean."

Luke considered him carefully, and asked plainly, "Are you ready to come back?"

"Yes sir," Ben said quietly, "I think I am. Not full-time, but maybe a couple times a week. I think I'm ready, but...more importantly, I  _want_  to be ready."

After a moment, Luke nodded, "Okay. Welcome back." Then he smiled, and got up from his seat, walking around Amilyn to surprise Ben with a big hug.

Rey found herself blinking back a few tears as she heard the rest of Luke's soft words.

"Welcome back, son. Welcome  _home."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A discussion, an invitation, and a party.
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> Attack: Yes, Rey has Phasma in her phone as "Queen Bitch"...it's my headcanon that Rey is in her phone as "Cupcake".
> 
> So, Ben's working through a lot, and that's going to be pretty constant throughout most of Act III. What he's been through isn't going to be fixed with just a few months of therapy, but hopefully you've noticed some of the improvements. For one, Ben has stopped saying things like "What did I do to deserve you?" and instead, we get things like: "He was truly thankful she'd chosen to love him."
> 
> Also...that last line. Anyone remember Ben and Rey's talk from Chapter 21? [Ben: "Dojang can literally translate to home. This will always be a home for you, whenever you need it." Rey: "I know. You know that's true for you, too, right?" Ben: "Yeah, kid. I know. It's a bit more complicated for me. But yeah...I know."]
> 
> Onfire: The approach we're trying to go for with Ben's therapy is called person-centered therapy, where, instead of analyzing a client's actions, the professional serves more as a talking board with the client. It's a deeply personal experience, and it's very raw. Honestly, I'm pretty nervous about writing these scenes as there is a lot of Hollywood Therapy conventions in media that makes me cringe, and we both want to avoid portraying an unhealthy client-therapist relationship. We're reading about proper therapy methods and characters, but if anyone has criticism we are willing to hear it as well.
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	44. Black Belt, Fourth Stripe, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little late, but here's another chapter! I still can't believe we're so close to the end.
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


"Everybody line up!"

Ben jerked and looked up from where he'd been reviewing Taeguk Pal-Jang in front of the mirror. Uncle Luke had given everyone free reign in the last quarter of the evening to practice whatever they needed to, though part of him wondered if that was mostly for his benefit. Ben hadn't practiced his forms in years.

He watched with muted surprise as all the students obediently assumed their starting positions without complaint. Ben had tried implementing a similar setup back when he'd been leading groups at  _The First Order_  early in his employment there, but it had never caught on. For one, there had been the pervasive and at-the-time true notion that each of them could kick his ass if they so chose to. Considering the fomented mentality amongst the staff there, any attempts at enforcing such rituals had left Ben feeling fruitless and pissed off.

By the time he'd gotten good enough to actually get any respect there, Ben had stopped caring entirely.

Trying not to draw too much attention to himself, Ben walked to the lead position in the line up. None of the others said anything, though he caught Rey and Poe beaming at him, each of them looking their own special blend of exhausted. He took his spot and nodded to his uncle, who'd taken position at the head of the room.

Ben and the other black belts present that evening - Rey and Poe - turned and faced the class. The next highest ranking student called out the bow commands. For the first time in months, Ben found himself bowing to someone other than his old master and the experience was disorienting in its banality.

They stood and faced Luke, and Ben readied himself this time for the sting of what would come next.

_Poe_  turned to face their instructor and called, "Everybody  _Chiryat_!"

Everyone, already at attention, straightened up a little further at the command.

"Sabumnim ke kungyet!"

They all bowed, and Luke dismissed them with a wave of his hands.

"Good job tonight, everyone!" he called out, his gray beard looking a little less smoky as he smiled. "Feel free to stick around if you want, I'll be in my office taking care of some things for at least another half an hour, so the room is yours to use."

Despite his words, Ben saw almost all the students - each of them completely unfamiliar faces to him - begin migrating to the locker rooms. They chatted amicably as they passed the lone three black belts, greeting Poe with enthusiastic grins and claps on his shoulder and occasionally giving Rey tiny half-smiles and distant, but respectful nods.

He didn't know what to make of the looks they shot him. Bewildered or curious, they paid him no more mind than a mild window shopper would a dress that wasn't on sale. For his part, he met their stares, and tried offering his own friendly grin in response, though that only prompted his new Dojang-mates to look away even faster. They hurried along and soon, it was just Poe, Rey and Ben left, Luke having retreated to his office after he dismissed them.

"So?" Poe said, approaching Ben and lightly punching him in the arm, "How was your first night back?"

Ben noted Poe's grin, and then his gaze darted down to the hand that'd punched him. Poe hadn't always been a southpaw, but as his uncle liked to say, necessity was the mother of invention. Ben hadn't missed the way Poe had favored his right arm during the night's session. He also hadn't missed that he'd been forced to sit out of sparring.

"About what I expected," Ben lied, welcoming Rocket Rey with a hug as she torpedoed into him like a petite missile. "Oof! You going for a takedown or something?" he asked, grinning, "Don't worry, you've already knocked me off my feet."

Rey mumbled something into his side that he understood to be along the lines of, "Shut up, you doofus."

"Love you too, sweetheart," Ben said, smirking down at the mop of brown hair that was halfway to unfurling from her buns. Her response was to ring a hand around and pinch his side. Hard.

"You two are adorable," Poe said flatly. There was mischief sparkling in his eyes. "Got any nachos by the way?"

"What?" Ben frowned, thrown off by the non sequitur.

"I'm gonna need something for all this cheese." Poe gestured to them plainly. "You two are  _such_ saps, I'm going to turn lactose intolerant."

Ben worked out the words in his head and found that there was a bit too much  _Poe_  and too little  _logic_ in that statement. "That makes zero sense."

His friend sniffed disdainfully. "Says you. It makes perfect sense to me."

Rey giggled and mumbled something into Ben's chest again, and he found himself reflexively holding her closer. Call it the caveman in him, but he liked pulling her in and listening to her say things against his skin. It had become something of a minor pastime of his. Rey liked to yell and attempt to playfully pull away whenever he grabbed her, but she always gave in. She'd giggle and smile every time, happy to be close to him. Ben didn't have the heart to tell her that some of those times, he'd been holding her out of the maddening and desperate need to make sure she was real.

"See?" Poe was positively glowing with delight, "That. That right there. You two are so sweet you might as well come with your own health hazard."

Ben stared at his longtime friend, feeling the beginnings of a smile twitch dangerously to fruition. "You," he paused to think of the best words, before deciding that simplicity was best, "are an idiot."

"Oh  _no,"_  Poe shot back, smirking, "The talking douche thinks I'm an idiot. Whatever shall I do."

Rey laughed some more, and Ben felt her fingers jab into him again.

"You could shut up, for one," Ben commented, seeing the cheeky grin on Poe's face. "I know that's really complicated, so let me know if you need instructions."

"I'll be sure to take the advice of a guy with more hair product than sense  _very_  seriously."

Ben's stare was unamused, even if he was full-on grinning. "Are you always-"

Finally, Rey pulled away, her muffled snorting turning into full-on giggling. Both Ben and Poe stopped talking to stare at their mutual friend. People started draining out of the locker rooms, offering curious glances in their direction before continuing to trek out. The two of them waited for Rey to finish her fit, which took an almost concerning amount of time to peter down to mere titters.

"You two are idiots," she said at last, looking at them. Her cheeks had gone ruddy with laughter, and she was definitely still sweaty from their workout but Ben thought he could fall in love with her all over again if  _this_  was what he had to look forward to for the rest of his life.

_The rest of his life._

Wow. That was-

"I take offense to that, good miss!" Poe said, breaking out a pompous voice that Ben had never heard from him. "Do not throw me in with this scoundrel! He gives us idiots a bad name."

"That's what you take offense to?" Ben asked incredulously.

Rey's uncontrolled giggle-snort stopped them before they could truly get going. Either Ben was truly fucked for this girl or someone had drugged him, because he found he could listen to her laugh for hours.

"Hey idiots," called an older, more mature, and not-at-all amused voice. The three of them turned to see Luke, leaning against the hall entrance that led to his private office, "You going to stand around all night or actually practice? This isn't an arcade you know."

The three of them looked at each other, and simultaneously flushed. Even though Ben and Rey had caught his uncle flat-footed when they'd stumbled upon him and Amilyn in the week before, thus robbing him of the solitary hermit mystique Ben knew he'd at least partially cultivated in purpose over the years, somehow Luke was still able to evoke the old hand-in-the-cookie jar shame that all parents can call up at a moments notice.

Poe brought an arm up and rubbed the back of his neck. "I've actually got to head out," he said. "I've got a physical therapy session tomorrow morning. Mostly to make sure I haven't done anything stupid recently."

"Too late for that then." Rey rolled her eyes but Ben could see the ear-splitting grin she wore.

"You used to be  _so_  cute and innocent," Ben mused, because that was easier than thinking about Poe's statement.

Poe choked. "Uh, Ben, I know you're like, drunk on love right now, but Rey has  _never_ been innocent. Cute, sure, but more like a very temperamental cat. Think  _Gremlins,_ actually."

Which just went to show which one of them was gutsier, because Ben would  _never_  say such a thing out loud in Rey's presence. At least, not without being out of punching range. The logic in that was further demonstrated when Rey walked up to Poe and smacked the man on the arm.

"I have no idea what that means," she said, voice low and threatening, "But you're an ass."

Ben disguised his snort of amusement as a very loud cough, while Poe once again displayed none of the same sense and laughed openly.

"Someone's tetchy," Poe muttered to himself, and then he shot Ben a wink. "Anyway, I need to head out, Finn's probably worried I backed into a signpost again."

With that said, he departed, grabbing his bag and heading into the men's locker room.

"What about you?" Ben asked, staring down at his girlfriend. It looked like she'd finally cooled down from their workout, and now she was shifting her weight from foot to foot, looking distinctly uncomfortable in her sweat-ridden dobok. "You going to abandon me too?"

She winced, and he immediately felt bad for the poor choice of words.

"I've got a paper due tomorrow," she said, rolling the words slowly and cautiously. "I was planning on pulling an all-nighter. It's my own stupid fault. I've been putting it off for a while now, but the topic's really dull and it's only five percent of my grade and-"

"Hey," he cut in gently, placing his hands on her shoulders. She stopped her building rant, and looked down at their feet. Gently, he placed his hand under her chin and lifted her to look up at him. "It's okay. I was just joking."

He knew it. As sure as the sun burned, as long as there existed light in the universe, Rey would never abandon him. That, if nothing else, was one thing he was never going to doubt again.

"I'll skip it," she promised, looking up at meeting his eyes, a fresh new flush creeping up her cheeks and coloring them a delightful shade that Ben had become very acquainted with, especially after finding out about the effect he had on her. "I'll just skip the paper and take the hit, and you can stay over tonight, and we can-"

Ben leaned down and couldn't stop the smirk from forming on his face at the small gasp she let out, seeing him so suddenly close. The hand on her shoulder migrated down to her hip, and then he pulled her close, while the hand cupping her chin moved to the back of her head, supporting her as he dove and captured her lips.

She let out a squeak of surprise, but before long, she was sighing against him, and her arms came up and around his neck, dragging him down further.

Really, it wasn't his fault this was the best way to stop one of her babbling sessions. Honest.

"Hem hem," Luke coughed conspicuously, back in the hallway entrance once more.

They released each other almost immediately, each stepping back and away from the other's gravitational pull. Rey's blush had evolved into something living and truly gorgeous, a shining crimson that lit her expression and left Ben breathless just by sight.

"You suck," she grumbled, turning away. Ben didn't miss the pleased look on her face before she did, though. He heard Luke plod away, back into his dwelling.

"You're the one who decided to bring tongue into this, sweetheart," Ben shot back. He definitely didn't mind, but Ben guessed that Luke wouldn't appreciate any vocal support for the sordidity he and Rey had just taken part in.

He'd just have to tell Rey his opinions on that kiss later. With examples.

"Is it okay though?" she asked suddenly, sounding much calmer than she'd been before, but still concerned. "You not staying over, I mean?"

"It's fine," he assured her, even if his stomach was doing uncomfortable flips at the thought of a night away from Rey. They'd gotten in the habit of spending a lot of time together, and Ben would be forever grateful for how  _good_  it was just to be around her, but he didn't want to become dependent. Some time apart was good for them, especially since their relationship was so relatively new. "Seriously, I'll probably fall asleep reading a book or something after I take a shower."

Rey's teeth found her lower lip, and Ben wondered if she was just trying to drive him insane on purpose. She released it after a second of thought, but his eyes remained firmly on her now plush lip.

"Alright," she said. She nodded up at him in a matter-of-fact way before she rushed in for a hug. They held each other tight, for considerably more time than a normal hug might last, and then reluctantly let go. "Let me know if you need anything, though, alright?"

"Get going!" Ben chuckled. "I'll text you later, but go, college girl. You've got responsibilities to get to, sweetheart."

Rey made a face at the new nickname, but didn't say anything else. With another quick peck, she left, heading into the locker rooms, passing Poe on the way out. Poe didn't come over this time, instead waving and just shouting out, "Remember! No food after midnight!"

Ben snorted, and the only reason he didn't say something vulgar in return was because they were still in the Dojang, and because Luke was probably only a few feet away, just as he'd been during all the times when Ben had thought he could get away with something while growing up.

"You three were certainly chatty," Luke said, stepping up beside Ben. To Ben's credit, he didn't jump in surprise much, but that was only because he was half-expecting it. As much as his uncle like to deny it, Ben was certain the man took some sort of strange, deviant pleasure from spooking the bejeezus out of every unlucky white belt that crossed his threshold.

"They were just trying to help," Ben answered softly, not turning to look at him.

"Hmph. Caught that, did you?"

Ben ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "I'm not blind, sir. I know Poe did all of that for my benefit."

He didn't have any proof, but something told him his own unease toward the end of training had been plainly visible to his friends. Of course Poe's first reaction to anything involving Ben was to bicker.

He didn't have to look to know that Luke was staring at him with undisguised sympathy. "It's your first day back, son."

"It shouldn't have been so hard to begin with," Ben argued. "I messed up Taeguk Il-Jang.  _Il-Jang_ , sir _._  I learned that when I was  _twelve._ "

It had been pretty clear early on in Ben's tenure with  _The First Order_  that learning and practicing there wasn't going to be anything like Ben's experience with Luke. Ben was well-aware that forms weren't necessarily the most practical things to learn, but they weren't supposed to be scripts on how to fight. They were learned to acclimate students to the mechanics of executing the techniques they'd been practicing, stringing them together so that the moves wouldn't feel unfamiliar. Ben hadn't been outright ridiculed when he'd rehearsed his forms while at  _The First Order_  but he hadn't missed how things would go missing from his locker afterward.

A hand came down on his shoulder, prompting Ben to turn and meet Luke's kindly smile.

"You've been away for awhile," he said. "I can't imagine Snoke would have encouraged that part of your training."

To Ben's credit, at least he no longer flinched when he heard the name out loud.

"I could have practiced on my own. You know, kept up my skills. You always recommended that when I was here."

"Yes, for those who have the time and ability to do so," Luke reasoned. "I'm not aware of the details, but that man was never shy regarding his opinions on the less practical aspects of training. I'm not surprised that you fell out of practice."

They quieted, seeing Rey exit the locker rooms. She'd changed into a loose and somewhat baggy sweatshirt that Ben recognized as recently missing from his dresser, and from the look on her face she knew he noticed. It stirred a warm tendril in his chest that quickly spread to the rest of him, temporarily pushing out the gnawing guilt that'd been closing in all night.

Rey came over, hugged Luke, and then gave Ben a kiss goodbye, just before running out the door and shouting something indiscernible.

"Come on now," Luke said, motioning for Ben to follow, "Grab your stuff, might as well close up shop for tonight."

Ben tried to keep his voice mild as he asked, "You're not going to finish your paperwork?"

Luke snorted. "Ben, half the time I say I've got paperwork to do, I just need a quiet moment to myself without a bunch of kids screaming in my ears."

That was a far more candid response than Ben had been expecting.

Catching himself, Ben's reply was to smoothly add, "Or you're on the phone with Amilyn."

"Or I'm on the phone with Amilyn," Luke amended, completely unashamed. He shot Ben a nasty look that would have melted steel. "I still owe you for that, by the way. I know you you know to respect your elders, you little punk."

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind sir," Ben answered facetiously, "if I ever find someone worthy of it."

The baleful glare directed his way was both rewarding in its playfulness, and bizarre in its friendliness. Even before he'd fucked up his relationship with his uncle that night they'd parted ways, Ben couldn't recall a time when Luke had been so comfortable in front of Ben as to even comment on the man's then nonexistent love-life, let alone calmly assert it.

Ben fleeted into the men's locker room, feeling like a stranger in his own dream. The arrangement of the room hadn't changed in the few years since he'd last used it, though he noticed that some of the tiles in the floor over in one of the corners had gained a collection of fine spiderweb cracks along the groove where it met the bottom of the wall. One of the two sinks was no longer functional, and a coating of rust had started to build up along the handles. The lockers were fine, a worn and scuffed navy blue, with the exception of a single one that had the faint odor of deviled eggs hanging about.

It was also empty. Ben ignored the urge to jump at the echo of every action he made in the room. He'd never seen the locker rooms so empty in his time there, even on the particularly slow days when snowfall had jammed up traffic and only people who lived in the neighborhood had been able to make it. It was ominous, as if the room itself was telling Ben to get in and get out as fast as possible.

He did just that, grabbing the contents of his locker - his old locker, still set aside by Luke for Ben, just in case he'd come back - and rapidly changed into sweats and a clean, but permanently stained t-shirt he'd used as an undershirt at the auto shop. The smell of motor oil invaded his nostrils, but it was far more welcoming than the sticky mess his dobok had become in the hour since he donned it. Nevermind how awkward the fabric felt on his skin as he'd gone through practice.

His uncle had changed in his office, in his private restroom, and he was waiting for Ben when he left the locker room.

They closed up the Dojang with no fanfare and little words exchanged. Late October air nipped at their skin, and Ben finally allowed himself the luxury of the shiver that had been building for the previous ten minutes. After some finagling with his keys, Luke locked the door, and set the alarm for the place. They entered the building through the neighboring door, and climbed the stairs to Luke's apartment.

Ben wondered if the building had always sounded like it was auditioning for a spot in a subversive musical about makeshift instruments. There were clacks and clangs and thumps and a virtual orchestra of odd building argot that he was pretty sure were not just signs of a building settling.

The apartment was a little stuffy since the heating was once again on the fritz - a fact which Ben had annoyingly discovered the night before when he'd woken up absolutely drenched in sweat.

The first thing Luke did when they got inside was sit down on his sofa, a quiet groan escaping him as he sank into the fabric.

After dropping his stuff off in his room, Ben returned and joined his uncle, this time sitting on the edge of the couch. He could have just jumped in the shower and probably excused himself into his bedroom for the rest of the night, much like he'd done in the first few weeks when he returned to living with Luke, but Ben didn't want to seem ungrateful after everything his uncle had done.

"So," Luke began once he heard Ben sit down, "how did your first evening back go?"

Why did everyone want to know that, Ben wondered.

"About what I expected," he said instead, echoing the words from earlier, acknowledging the sting of the falsehood even as he told himself it was for the best. Even after everything, what did it say about him that his first instinct was to hide?

Luke chuckled.

"You're a terrible liar," he said, opening his eyes and fixing Ben with a look that said exactly what he thought of his fib. "You and Rey, both. Be honest. I'm not going judge you for your opinion, Ben."

He should. Ben knew objectively that it was lame to be disappointed with how the night had gone, because there was no way Ben was going to leap right back into a normal practice session after years of haphazard classes and no formal structure, but Ben had been hoping the damage hadn't reached as far down as his own memories of Taekwondo training. Any other master would have judged Ben - who'd progressed so far under Luke that it only worsened the dissatisfaction he felt with himself - for forgetting so much essential stuff.

Things like poomse. Promise sparring. Drills.

Ben inhaled and let out a long shuddering breath. He almost hoped he could expel all his own negativity out this way, but  _no_ , the grime in his chest stuck to him pervasively.

"...it sucked," he said, disclosing that toxic shame that had sprung up in his mind at around the fifteen minute mark of training.

"I bet it did." Luke began drumming his fingers on his knee, slowly. "You looked like you were drowning out there tonight, Ben. You wanna' talk about it?"

Ben ducked his head and looked away, the heat of remorse cooking him in his own shirt. "Not really."

"Alright."

They'd done this a few times before. Luke had been exceedingly clear that regardless of their relationship in the Dojang, regardless of whether he returned or not, he was Ben's uncle first. That apparently meant being quite verbal and explicit that Ben needn't worry about feeling any judgement from him on certain things, even when it concerned a topic they were both passionate about, such as Taekwondo. Ben had never really taken his uncle up on the offer. Things were still a little awkward between them - three years of antagonism wasn't going to disappear overnight - but his uncle never acted like it was a big deal or gave any indication that he was upset that Ben chose not to talk.

A few seconds passed, and then Ben sighed.

"I wasn't expecting it to be so hard," he said. Just saying it sent a sharp spear of  _something_  through his heart.

"Did you expect it to be easy?" Luke asked, seeming genuinely curious and not as derisive as the words could have been

_Yes._

"Well, no, but," Ben stopped and tried to verbalize his words in such a way as to not sound petulant.

Martial arts had been his lifeblood - his passion, for most of his life. At a certain point in the past three years, it had even become his raison d'etre, growing and evolving into a monster that demanded and devoured everything he could feed it. Ben had thought he'd done well, in getting out from under that monster's thumb when he did, in realizing that he was the one with the power in that toxic relationship, but it was discouraging to see that at some point in his journey to improve, Ben had lost more than he'd gained.

"I didn't give you kids that free time at the end of practice so you'd end up talking yourself into a mood again, Ben," Luke said. "I thought you could use the time to figure out what you've missed. Work out what you need a refresher on."

"I shouldn't need to do that, though."

Ben was grateful for the dusty and weak light of Luke's lamp - the only source of light in the room now. He could just imagine the shadow of and distorted expression on his own face. "I was practicing for  _three_  years under that man. Three years, and the promise of mastery, and what do I have to show for it? I can barely even remember  _not_  to beat the shit out of people in sparring."

That was an exaggeration, but even with four months of atrophy, his instincts were still there, and, as a result of Ben's own hesitant return to promise sparring and a loud kihap from a nearby spar going off right in his ear, he was pretty sure he'd terrified the lone green belt who'd had the misfortune of matching up against Ben.

"I don't know what I'm doing anymore, Uncle Luke," Ben said, voice hoarse. He'd been keeping it together earlier, but the first class since his sabbatical, coupled with nearly braining a lower belt while also being unintentionally reminded of what he'd done to Poe's arm...it brought up some alarming concerns. Questions and doubts that he knew were human and alright to have once in a while, rose up and seemed to batter at the shore of his mind.

He should have told Rey, but even Ben hadn't been expecting the intensity of the blowback after everything that had happened.

Ben was so entrenched in his ruminations that he didn't notice Luke get up from the seat, not until he sat down in a new spot and did something he'd only ever done a handful of times in Ben's life.

He laid his arm across Ben's shoulder. Laid it, and brought him in close. Luke was half a head shorter than him, had been since Ben had shot up like a weed in his sophomore year of high school, but he'd never seemed small - not to Ben. His rough and calloused hand was strong, and held Ben's shoulder in paternal affection that had so scared Ben since the day he moved in with a backpack and a dazed realization that  _this_  was going to be his new life.

"The mistake you're making here," Luke said, voice rough with undetermined emotion, "is in thinking you have to do this alone. That's what I'm here for, Ben. I  _am_  your Master, you know. Unless….you want to change your mind?"

Most people wouldn't have caught the warble in his tone, but most people hadn't grown up under Luke Skywalker's watch. Ben knew his uncle liked to put up a brave front for most, always the stalwart guardian and teacher, but Ben had the blessing of insight offered to someone who'd practically been raised by his uncle.

Master Luke was afraid. Afraid Ben would say he didn't want him as his Master anymore.

It was a sign of his emotional exhaustion that the first thing Ben did was snort. One snort became two and then, at some point, he was chortling.

"Sir, I can say this with unequivocal confidence: I wouldn't want anyone else to be my teacher."

Luke's grip on his shoulder tightened.

"I don't expect you to be perfect right off the bat, Ben," Luke said. There was a rough quality to his words that hadn't been there before. "I don't even expect you to be perfect, period. I know things are going to be rough going for a while, but, I'm here to help you if you want me to. I've been doing private lessons with Rey for a while now. If you want, we can set aside some time every week for you, too."

Private lessons? Rey hadn't said anything about that, but Ben could only imagine what they were like, or why they'd been prompted in the first place. Ben had gone through enough in the early years of when he'd moved in with Luke, exasperating and infuriating experiences that had truly tested Ben's patience over time, even if he recognized the benefits that came with it in the end. They'd helped focus Ben during those times, direct his frustration at something tangible and person-shaped in the form of his Uncle Luke, who took the brunt of it all and let it wash over him like water off a duck.

"What would we do in these lessons?" Ben asked, finding himself more curious despite his dilemma. He vividly remembered long afternoons of meditation, or at least the imitation of it in order to fool his uncle, and Ben made a face in anticipation.

"Practice," Luke answered simply. "Forms. Talk. It's nothing we wouldn't have to do normally since I'm getting you ready for your fourth dan."

Ben blinked at that. "Sir?"

"What?" At Ben's questioning glance, Luke expounded. "Regardless of circumstance, Ben, you  _did_  serve the minimum requirement of years. Technically, once we address the formalities, I can make you a master whenever I deem. Normally I'd have started these meetings with you awhile ago but...well, circumstances as they are, I'm available whenever you're comfortable. I won't judge if you want to get used to things at the Dojang at your own pace. Not when I've been in much the same position as you and Rey have."

"What do you mean?" Ben asked, deciding to freak out over the possibility of still someday attaining fourth dan later.

Luke slumped and his face pinched with regret. "A long time ago, I did some stupid things. Things that nearly got me and a few other people killed."

"Runs in the family, then?" Ben couldn't help but add, his tone sardonic and darkly amused despite the curiosity.

"In more ways than one." Luke shot him a sidelong smirk before gently shaking his head. "The guilt ate at me for months. Years. It got to a point where I thought I was going to quit practicing just so I could stop thinking all about the many and detailed ways I'd messed up and nearly got my friends hurt. And...my father, who  _did_ get hurt."

Ben's mouth dropped. He didn't know why, but talk of Anakin Skywalker had been taboo in his mother's household while he was growing up. Luke, although he didn't forbid Ben from asking, always answered in the vaguest ways possible. Even Snoke, with all his apparent desire to own the Dojang, and with all his spiels on the value of Ben's heritage, had been unhelpful, opting for the exact opposite extreme of the Skywalker twins. Anakin Skywalker was a figure of myth to  _The First Order_ , a false deity or paragon that was not to be mentioned except in hushed whispers behind closed doors and in the most reverent of tones.

To find out that Luke had hurt his own father, or at least been part of the reason for some sort of injury, possibly through and with Taekwondo, was jarring.

"It was my Master who helped me move on," Luke said, a far-away look on his face as he gazed into the past, "Him, your father, and a few others. They're the ones who helped pull me up from that cavern I'd found myself lost in. Just as I can do for you, if you'd let me."

Ben clasped his hands. The urge to clench and flare the always present pain in his aching hands was immense. It called to him, low and sibilant in whispers of spiced sweets and velvet croons, and he nearly gave in to the sensation.

The only reason he didn't was the strong, taut, and weighty feeling of his uncle's arm across his shoulders. It was a half-hug - an expression of affection reminiscent of those Luke had reserved for a terrified boy who'd only ever wondered why he hadn't been good enough.

Realizing his uncle was awaiting an answer, Ben cleared his throat. His decision had already been made.

"I'd like that, Uncle Luke," he said quietly.

Just returning to the art that had he'd given so much of himself to wasn't going to be enough. He'd need help. He was going to have a mountain worth of things to talk about with Kaydel at his next session, but even though Ben's body hurt from disuse and his mind threatened to drift into la-la land at the slightest signs of weakness - even though it was corny and cheesy and several different flavors of "after school special"...his heart felt a little more at peace.

* * *

Rey supposed she should have known that Luke was up to something when he asked if she knew when Phasma's next shift was starting. They'd just wrapped up a Saturday session, and November had been halfway over before she'd had the chance to realize it. Classes had been doing their damned best to suck all hope from her and her friend's spirits, and they were doing a frighteningly good job of it, too.

Luckily, Thanksgiving vacation was soon and as a result, all of her professors had fallen into that wonderful state of apathy that academics unwittingly meandered into when the prospect of something other than black text on white background for days on end emerged on the horizon. Rey had no papers or tests due for the next week, and the feeling was wonderful.

She had a library's worth of papers due after the break, but that was future Rey's problem, and present Rey wasn't feeling generous.

After a particularly grueling weekend training session, Luke decided to accompany Ben, Poe, and her to their regular post-workout greasy food binge at Maz's.

As soon as the bells over the door jingled, Rey cast a glance around the room for one person in particular, and was almost immediately drawn to the statuesque blonde making careful progress weaving through the various chairs and tables of the diner.

It had come as a shock to Rey to see the uniform on Phasma, but now it looked natural on her excessively sarcastic friend (a descriptor that Rey only just now realized was woefully inappropriate at distinguishing which of her friends she was referring to). The pants rode high, and, due to Phasma's long legs, drew more than a bit of attention from the customers, but seeing as how neither Maz nor Phasma minded, nothing had been done about it. If nothing else, Phasma completely owned the outfit like some twisted runway model, milking it for all the tips she could get.

She'd even made a few suggestions to Rey about how to make the uniform more flattering, and somehow, Ben ended up staring even more whenever he came in during one of her shifts.

Phasma weaved and slid in front of them, rolling languidly sideways as she showed off her new skill.

"Sup," she greeted casually, a wicked smirk on her face and mirth dancing in her eyes. "Remind me to get Hux a pair of these things. I want to see him fall on his ass a few times. Guy's a dick."

"I'll be sure to make that my number one priority," Ben drawled, his own amused grin quirking into being. "Come on Phas, I thought you  _liked_ Hux."

Phasma shrugged. "That's how I express my love and affection."

"Through pain," Poe said, sounding completely unsurprised.

"Isn't that how everyone does it?" Phasma asked, ever so innocently, glancing between Rey and Ben. "Or do you not remember how these two's first kiss went?"

"I have terrible friends," Poe muttered, looking fondly over at them as Ben and Rey broke out in protest, each of them blushing terribly. It wasn't the kind of story to just air out in public, after all.

"In any case, let me clear off a table for you," she said, straightening and snapping off a playful salute. "Nothing but the best for my friends and the scary grandmaster. Your choice - ripped upholstery or the pleasantly rancid smell of french fry grease that is sure to sink into your clothes?"

Her expression was locked in a faint rictus of smile that ached to shatter and display the agony underneath.

"You get stuck on dishwashing duty again?" Rey asked, already knowing the answer.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Every once in awhile, Maz' high powered dishwasher would bust, either through some internal mechanical issue or some other related matter. Seeing as how essential it was and the limited amount of plates they had, Maz would have the waitresses draw straws and whoever was unlucky enough to get it would be stuck on dishwashing duty indefinitely, or at least until Maz conjured some sorcery to bring the machine back to life.

Phasma had gotten saddled with washing duty three times in her short stay. Seeing as how the issue had only popped up four times, it was a surprisingly amusing string of bad luck for the usually composed psycho.

"Actually, Master Phasma," Luke spoke up from behind the trio of non-masters, "I was wondering if I could speak with you for a moment?"

That drew everyone's attention from their little group. Luke didn't normally interact with people in Rey's friend group, outside of those who regularly came by the Dojang. Admittedly, he and Phasma had spoken cordially on the phone a few times before, but actually addressing her by her title was indicative that this was going to be a  _Taekwondo_  discussion.

The silence that stretched between Luke's words and Phasma's reaction was almost concerning, if only for the careful and guarded look that formed on her friend's face. After some time of measured evaluation, Phasma jerked her head to the corner of the room. Without saying anything else, she skated in that direction.

Luke followed her, passing through a gap between Rey and Poe, and calmly walked to meet their indisposed waitress.

"That reminds me actually," Ben said, apparently to himself even though Rey caught it. "Hey Poe, mind if I talk to you?"

"Uh, sure?"

And just like that, her boyfriend and friend left her standing in the doorway while they aimed for a semi-private booth with no one on either side.

Rey huffed. Really, what was she supposed to do, just hang around gawking at nothing while her friends had semi-private conversations? She debated the idea of staying put, but decided against it. If they'd really wanted to keep it truly private, they would have asked her not to say anything.

She looked between Ben and Luke, each in their own respective conversations on opposite ends of the diner. Maz was behind the counter, shooting Rey annoyed looks that she could maybe translate to "What'd that old kook kidnap my waitress for?"

(Maz's looks were a whole language unto themselves and Rey couldn't help the childish pride at being able to read her insane boss so well.)

Deciding to go with the less scary option, Rey not so surreptitiously made her way over to the booth where Ben and Poe were in rapt conversation with each other.

"-elling you, it's fine, man!" Poe exclaimed. He poked his formerly broken arm. "I knew what I was getting into when I went there. I knew the dangers."

"No, you didn't," Ben argued, voice quiet and subdued. There was a strange resoluteness to his tone that had her canting her head in his direction as she slid into the bench beside him. "At least, you didn't know all of them. Can you honestly say that you were expecting that to happen because of me?"

"I expected  _something_  to happen that night," Poe fumed, "I knew there was something going on, and when I found out about the crazy Cobra Kai crap happening, I-"

He stopped. Then, slowly - almost malevolently - a grin took over his face.

"Actually Ben? I know exactly how you can repay me."

Ben blinked at the turnabout. "Should I be worried?"

"Nah." Poe's smile became positively devious. "Not at all."

"You saying that, with  _that_  look on your face really doesn't instill confidence in me, man."

"I'll let you know the details later," Poe waved off his worries, winking at Rey. "I'll even take an oath too! Look we even have our own witness." He raised his right hand up in a pledge, with his fingers crossed. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good. There. Now you don't have to worry."

"That phrase doesn't mean what you think it means!" Ben protested, no longer in control, and he looked genuinely confused and possibly fearful of whatever hairbrained idea had just been concocted in his friend's brain.

"I meant what I said," Poe said, and then, just for effect, he cackled.

Loudly.

"Use your chest more," Phasma commented, skating up to the booth, voice airy and unconcerned. "A good cackle comes from the gut, not the throat."

"You would know, wouldn't you?" Rey muttered, grinning at her friend, only to frown at the distracted look on her face. She looked around for Luke. "What's up? Where's Luke?"

"He left," Phasma answered, voice clipped. She winced before looking down at her table of mutual friends, "Sorry. He said he had some stuff to take care, and that he'd only come inside to ask me something."

She trailed off, and looked outside the window at the sight of Luke's back disappearing into the door of the Dojang, before turning to look at the ground.

"Well?" Rey probed, wondering what the secrecy was for. "What was it?"

Phasma bit her lip, and it struck Rey that she'd only ever seen her friend this vulnerable looking only a few times in the years they'd known each other.

"He, uh." Phasma looked at Ben and then away, as if ashamed. "He asked me to come teach at the Dojang."

None of them said anything. Rey looked to Ben, worried about the effect this revelation would have on him. She knew that, at some point, Ben had been Luke's intended heir for the Dojang, before he'd gone to Snoke. She imagined that he and Luke were working out the details of Ben's current stay as well, and she already knew that Ben had taken over some of the duties that came with managing the business, including processing promotion papers for review.

But, instead of the crumpled expression she half expected to see, she saw only the knowing half-smile of a man who'd been in the plan from the beginning.

"So?" he asked, uncharacteristically gentle. "You going to take it?"

"He wouldn't be able to pay me much," Phama explained instead, sounding like she was only half paying attention. "I wouldn't even do much there, either. It's not like he has that many students at this point." She looked up from her contemplation and shot them a look. "Sorry."

Poe shrugged. "Can't help what other people do. It's not your fault they can't handle the awesome."

Even as Rey and Ben voiced their agreement, Phasma's statement had given shape to a small worry that had been hiding out in the fogs of Rey's consciousness, always nearby, but never within eyesight. Rey wasn't the only one aware of the dwindling class size. Whereas Luke's Dojang had once been full of people practicing at a time, sometimes reaching as many as fifty on a good evening, now it was a fraction of what it had once been.

Ben's addition had bumped their numbers up to sixteen, but even that wasn't likely to be longstanding number. Together, she, Poe and Ben made up almost a fourth of Luke's students, and that was surprising and worrisome to Rey, who fondly remembered evenings of people laughing and working together to become proficient in their art.

What had happened, Rey wondered. Was it just unlucky business, or was there something foul afoot? It was probably ridiculous to assume that every misfortune or calamity that happened to the people in her lives could be attributed to Snoke, but after everything - after seeing the extent of the coverup operation, and just by scratching the surface of what he was capable of with the fight club - Rey wouldn't have put it past him.

"Phas?" Rey asked softly, seeing her friend not respond, "Are you going to take the job?"

Phasma shook her head. "Ask me when I'm not on the clock."

It was a non-answer, and it worried Rey, but it wasn't her responsibility to decide for her friends. If it were, she'd have had them all pack up and move somewhere far away from the bristly cage of thorns that they'd thrown off, but was now quickly encroaching upon their lives, inch by choking inch.

* * *

Rey leaned against the counter of Luke's small kitchen, watching with amusement as Ben started layering lasagna ingredients in a glass baking pan. They'd arrived at Luke's early for Christmas, having already had their  _Friendsmas_  the day before, and Luke had reluctantly admitted that Ben's cooking skills had, at some point, surpassed his own.

Luke had already picked up a few pies for dessert, and between what Ben was cooking, and what Maz and Leia were bringing, they were bound to have enough food to feel a small army.

Rey hummed happily along to the Christmas music Luke had put on, and Ben grinned over at her as he put the last layer on the lasagna and popped it in the oven. "Excited for Christmas?" he asked, knowing full well that she was more than a little excited that it was their first real holiday together. Like,  _together-_ together.

She nodded, and stared up at him, unable to do anything but smile broadly as his hands landed on her hips. Her arms looped around his neck and she put her head against his chest as he pulled her closer, and they swayed to the music for a minute. Thankfully Luke was in the shower getting ready before Amilyn (and everyone else) showed up, because Rey hadn't gotten Ben to herself for a few days, and that had become an annoyingly long time to go without being in private with her boyfriend.

Ben seemed to read her mind, and looked down at her with a bit of a smirk. He maneuvered her so her back was against the kitchen counter, and then she let out a yelp of surprise as he lifted her up to sit on the surface behind her. Her legs dangled off the counter and she laughed softly as he moved to stand between her legs, and she was silenced almost instantly as his lips caught hers in a slow, languid kiss.

His hand slid up her over her sweater to cup her face, and she sighed as he licked into her mouth. It hadn't taken them long to memorize each other, and Ben had quickly become an expert on  _Rey_ , which was more than ideal since she had no intention of ever kissing anyone else.

Ben was it for her. Rey was almost entirely sure he felt the same way, and she'd never felt more loved, safe, and secure with any relationship in her life.

His lips moved over hers exquisitely as he lifted at her jaw to get a better angle, deepening the kiss while Rey moaned, and rested her hands on his chest. They only broke away from each other when the timer went off, and Ben glanced over at it, saying, "Oh, sorry, must have forgotten a zero." He huffed and said, "this  _obviously_ needs to cook for more than four minutes."

Rey nodded, still a little dazed from his mouth, and she looked up at him as he moved back to his spot in front of her.

"Huh," he said softly, gazing at her. He'd been doing even more of that lately, and something about it made Rey feel... _beautiful._

She tilted her head curiously, and asked, "What's up?"

"It uh…" he hesitated and then shrugged, and worked his lips together as he stared down at her. "Nothing. Just the lighting in here."

"No, really, what is it?" she asked again, her brow furrowing.

His look morphed into a sheepish one, and if Rey wasn't mistaken, a bit of a blush started to creep across his face. "You uh...it looks…" he hesitated, trying to come up with the words. "I just never noticed the flecks of gold. Uh...in your eyes."

Ben's hands came up to cup her face, and he looked down at her with an expression she'd come to recognize as pure devotion and adoration, as he whispered, "It looks like you have stars in them, sweetheart."

Rey blinked. With her hands on his chest, she could feel his heart beating. "If I do," she breathed, "it's only because of you."

He swallowed hard before glancing down to her lips, and Rey felt her heart pound as he took a deep breath, and slowly leaned back in. They'd kissed each other a thousand times, but each kiss still felt like  _magic_. Pure magic.

Ben tugged at her lower lip, and his hands slid down from her face over her chest, causing her to gasp into his mouth, and they kept sliding down until they got to her waist. He hummed, meeting her tongue with his and her eyelashes fluttered as his hands slid mischievously up under her sweater.

"Ben!" she giggled against his lips.

His hands moved up a bit further, and he cupped her breasts over her bra, and she broke the kiss and tossed her head back in laughter. "Ben, you're going to get us in trouble!" she scolded playfully.

Ben just grinned and nuzzled into the crook of her neck, murmuring, "Worth it. I  _love_  you, starlight, so fucking much. I'm never gonna get tired of saying it."

"You might want to try listening to your girlfriend," Luke's amused voice called from the hall, "And maybe stop groping each other when I'm around?"

The hands on her chest dropped instantly and Ben looked thoroughly and properly embarrassed as he turned bright red and bashfully rested his head on her shoulder while he let out a few breathy laughs. "Sorry Uncle Luke. Won't happen again."

"Oh, I'm sure it probably will," Luke drawled, joining them in the kitchen with a massive smirk on his face, and arms crossed over his chest. He rolled his eyes at them and shook his head, "I swear, you two are going to be the reason I go completely gray."

Rey laughed again, mostly at her boyfriend's obvious mortification, and she said dryly, "Toldja you were going to get us into trouble."

"I thought he was still in the shower," Ben muttered defensively.

His head was still buried in her shoulder and he didn't seem to have any intention of looking up anytime soon, but Rey glanced over at Luke to shoot him an apologetic smile. Thankfully the man just smiled fondly at her and shrugged.

Rey rested her head back against the cabinet behind her and sighed, using a hand under Ben's chin to lift his face to look back up at her. He was still a bit red, but smiled softly at her, and leaned in to give her a chaste kiss.

She laughed as she heard Luke groan and walk out of the kitchen.

* * *

It had taken Ben considerably longer than he'd expected to pick out a present for Rey. It wasn't like she wouldn't love anything he gave her, but it was their  _first_  holiday together - the first of many, with any luck - and he desperately wanted to give her something she'd love. Something that he'd put a lot of thought into rather than a lot of money, because he'd come to realize pretty quickly that Rey didn't care much about how much things cost.

She was the kind of person who was more than happy to take a picnic to a park for a date, and she really didn't seem to care whether they spent time at the diner, or at a fancy restaurant. She just wanted  _him_ , and Ben was still trying to wrap his mind around that. There were so many times he just froze in the middle of whatever they were doing and stared at her in awe, thinking that everything was just too good to be true...but there she was, every time, smiling at him and ready to remind him that it was real, and not some dream he'd conjured up.

He'd considered getting Hux's help, or maybe Rose's, but for some reason, he'd landed on asking Phasma for advice sometime around the end of November.

Phasma had blinked for a moment, sitting across from him in one of the diner's booths during her lunch break, and had eventually asked, "Are- are you asking me for  _relationship advice?_ "

Ben was pretty sure he'd blushed, as was his norm when talking about Rey, because  _wow_ , did she have that sort of effect on him, and he'd nodded to his friend. For a minute, he'd thought Phasma might tease him, but instead, a shockingly soft smile had grown on her face, and she'd said quietly, "Wow, you really do love her, huh?"

He'd only managed a whisper in response, saying, "She terrifies me, Phas. I just- I had no idea how scary it would be to love someone. I didn't even know it was possible to feel like this."

Phasma had paused for a moment, and then grinned as she'd said, "I have an idea. Do you remember telling me about the Christmas when you gave her that necklace? Didn't she spend like, a  _month_  writing Luke all kinds of essays on the tenets, and on family?"

Ben had frowned, not really seeing where she'd been going with that, but nodded in confirmation.

"Write her something," Phasma had suggested. "That'll mean more to her than anything you could ever buy. Plus, you used to write all the time in college - maybe getting back into it wouldn't be such a bad thing."

He'd given it some consideration, and then sat back in the booth, and gave Phasma a grateful smile. As soon as her break had ended, that cold day in November, Ben had gone home to the apartment over the dojang, sat down at his desk, and started writing a story about a girl who shined as bright as the stars, and about the man she'd helped save from an awful fate.

And now, Ben took a deep breath as he handed her a thick manilla envelope with the first four chapters of what had rapidly turned into a long story, and nervously tapped his fingers against his knee as he explained quietly, "It's unfinished, but I thought maybe I could add a few chapters to it every couple of months."

Thankfully, between the Christmas music that was playing and the ruckus that came from everyone else's laughter at some joke Lando had told, nobody had really noticed him give her the gift. Considering how personal it was, and how shy he was about it, he probably should have waited until they were in private, but the risk was more than worth it as the peeked inside and scanned the first few lines on the first page.

Ben watched closely as her jaw dropped slowly, and her eyes widened as she looked over at him with an expression full of reverence and adoration.

"Did you write this?" she whispered, "...for me? I- I didn't even know you wrote."

"I don't," he shrugged shyly, "Not really. Or, not anymore, at least. I did some in college, but once I graduated I was busy with the Dojang and then training under-" he paused at the name, not really feeling like mentioning the monster from his nightmares, "Well, you know - I didn't really have any time for creative outlets." He paused, and admitted, "I'm a bit rusty. This is...well, it's a rough draft."

"It's perfect," Rey murmured, looking back to the envelop in her hands. "It's the best gift I've ever gotten," she said softly. He watched as she bit her lip and said, "Honestly, it's a  _lot_  better than what I got you."

Ben smiled slowly and leaned closer to kiss her forehead, saying, "I'm sure that's not true. I already have you - why would I need anything else?"

"Well," she blushed, "it  _is_  Christmas, so of  _course_  I got you something." Her voice got a bit quieter as she whispered in his ear, "You can still have me later, if you want."

He grinned wolfishly, and then blinked as she set a present in his lap. It was a lot bigger and heavier than he'd expected, though he really had no idea what she'd give him, and he looked down at it curiously. It took him less than a minute to get through the dark blue wrapping and he lifted the cover off the box he'd unwrapped. His breath caught when he saw its contents.

Ben huffed, and shook his head, mostly in disbelief. "Are we  _always_  going to get each other similar presents?" he asked.

Rey let out a little laugh, and said, "Well, it's not like  _I_  wrote these."

He hesitated, and then smiled over at her, "How'd you know I lost them?"

"Are you kidding?" She raised an eyebrow at him, "You know I've been in your room, right? It didn't take me long to figure out which books were gone. I mean-" she sighed, and said, "I didn't know the full list of ones you had before - I know you had a big collection, but I could at least tell that your Dresden books were missing."

"How did you even find these in hardcover?" he asked, still completely surprised by her gift. "I didn't know they released the first few in anything but softcover."

She shrugged, "They're out there, apparently. I thought it'd be nice if they were all in the same format."

"You're really incredible, you know that?" he breathed, looking over at her in awe.

Rey just winked, and said, "So are you."

* * *

Ben hadn't been able to take his eyes off her the rest of the night. Of course, he'd been perfectly social and visited with his mother, joked with Lando and Chewie, exchanged presents with his Uncle Luke, and acted perfectly normal all evening.

It's entirely possible that nobody had noticed that his heart had been pounding and that he'd been completely focused on nothing but  _Rey_. He didn't even pay much attention to the movie everyone had picked out ( _The Santa Clause_ , apparently) and instead stared down at her while she slept with her head on his shoulder. He smiled softly at her, leaning down to press a soft kiss to her forehead.

"The kid fall asleep?" Luke said quietly from the chair on the other side of Ben.

He glanced over at his uncle and nodded, unable to wipe the stupid smile from his face. "I'm not sure she's ever made it through a movie on Christmas," he chuckled.

"You should go to bed, then," Luke suggested.

Ben looked up at him curiously, "I assumed you'd rather not-"

"I don't mind," Luke smiled. "The kid seems exhausted." He paused, and added, "It's nice. Seeing you both so happy. It...it's  _nice,_ " he repeated.

Rey let out a soft, sleepy sigh that warmed his heart, and he kissed her forehead again, smiling against her skin as he nodded to his uncle. "Okay," he said quietly, "I'm going to go tuck her in, then. I'll be right back. I can uh...sleep on the couch when everyone leaves."

Luke let out a huff and rolled his eyes and waved Ben off. "Don't be silly. Just get some sleep, son. I'll see you two in the morning."

Ben stared at him for a moment, and smiled gratefully, then finally nodded before he gathered Rey into his arms, and stood up. She nuzzled into his chest in her sleep, and he couldn't help but grin before he quietly said goodnight to everyone, and then carried her off to bed.

It was easily the best Christmas he'd ever had.

* * *

Rey bobbled her head along to the intro of AC/DC's  _Hells Bells_ that Phasma had queued up on the jukebox, and they both giggled as they skated around the diner. It was a little after 10 PM, and Maz had started letting them close up together when their shifts lined up.

Phasma had made  _vast_  improvements on her skates, and considering her height, Rey was beyond impressed. Without warning, she caught Rey's arm when they passed each other and spun her around. Thankfully Rey's balance was excellent after years of practice, and she threw her head back in laughter.

"Nice try," she snorted, gliding gracefully to latch on to the edge of a table. She started to wipe it down when she heard the bells over the door jingle, and she called out, "Sorry, we're closed!"

When the bells didn't jingle again, Rey groaned quietly, cursing herself for forgetting to lock the door and turned, ready to repeat her words. Instead, she saw Phasma standing by the jukebox, stunned into silence by their unexpected guest.

"Good evening, Miss Kenobi. Master Phasma," the man crooned. His voice was a slimy, heady, and repulsive noise that invaded Rey's ears. "I'm glad I caught you. I was hoping I'd have an opportunity to talk with you."

_Caught_ was a good word for the panicky gibbering taking place somewhere in the space between her synapses. Most of the instruments faded, and suddenly, the only thing she could hear was drumming. Thready long beats that caroled the end, beating in time with the blood that pulse in her veins.

"Get out," Rey said flatly, pointing to the door. "Get the fuck out of here. You have  _no_  right-"

"Child," he warned. It was a tone of reproof, of a teacher slamming a ruler against a desk to grab his student's attention and he said it so easily and she listened so readily, Rey hated herself for it.

For the briefest second his calm, non-threatening facade rippled and something old and pettily cruel crept out from behind his skin in the form of a smile. But in the blink of an eye, he was again  _Master Snoke_ , ever the professional. He looked toward Phasma and said in a friendly voice that was anything but, "I was just in town when I remembered that you'd recently begun working here."

Both Rey and Phasma knew that Snoke had been keeping tabs on them. Leia had been honest about everything so far, but hearing it from the man himself lent an awful quality to every single one of their actions in the past few months, tainting it with the knowledge that he'd been watching them somehow.

" _Get out!_ " Rey all but shrieked, picking up a plate and waving it in his direction. She had no idea what she would do if the man took another step further, but she didn't want to chance it - didn't want to risk this foul thing from grabbing one of Rey's lights in his talons and dragging them under. Phasma had turned ashen, but Rey could tell from the numerous twitches along her neck that the woman was actively restraining herself.

"I wanted to take the opportunity to remind you of a Master's duty to his or her student. I  _do_  hope you keep in mind. It  _is_  a Master's responsibility to demote or strip their student of their rank if they believe their student may be violent or acting in an untoward manner."

Phasma stayed frozen, and Rey could practically see the blood drain from her friend's face.

"Violent?" Rey hissed, "If anyone here is  _violent_  or untoward, Snoke, it's you."

"Miss Kenobi, do you not consider brutally injuring fellow martial artists a violent act?" he paused, and let the words sink in before his lips curled in a way that sent shivers throughout her body, undoubtedly as some part of an evolved reaction to being near a predator. "What about burning down a building, Miss Kenobi?" he near-whispered, snarling and biting into the words to show teeth, "Would you consider  _that_  violent?"

Without another word, he gave them an eerie look that could have been mistaken for some perversion of a smile, and he turned, and walked out of the diner.

The bells over the door jingled behind him and they watched, still, as he walked out into the darkness of the early January evening, far enough away so he escaped the light, and their eyesight. They had just enough time to breathe out and release the tension that had built up in the room before Rey stopped, suspended in time.

She'd missed something. There was something there, right at the tip of her tongue - right in the back of her mind. Something her brain had caught and was trying to alert her to, but she  _just_   _couldn't place it_. It was like there was writing on the wall right in front of her, but the lights were off, so she couldn't make it out.

After a moment, she shook her head, and took a deep breath, and that's when she noticed it.

"Phasma..." Rey looked around, sniffing, and frowned, "do you smell that?"

It was a familiar smell, and something about it made unease bubble up in her, and the feeling boiled over as she glanced over at Phasma.

Rey thought she'd seen Phasma scared before.

She'd been wrong.  _This_  was what true terror looked like.

_What about burning down a building, Miss Kenobi?_

"Yeah, I do," the woman breathed, eyes frozen wide in horror. Her expression was something far more terrifying than simple fear as she quickly blurted out a loud and panicked, "Rey, I think that's gas."

_Would you consider_  that  _violent?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Investigating, humanity, and a name.
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> Attack: Well, hells bells.
> 
> Onfire: Our heroes respite is over. Snoke is back. The man will get his dues, but before we do, we need to get a bit more backstory. Who really is Snoke and how does he tie in with Anakin Skywalker and the Dojang?
> 
> ….sorry, the whole leading question thing at the end of a chapter bit is just too alluring. I'm a complete sap for cliches.
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	45. Black Belt, Fifth Stripe, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, grad school's gotten busy! (More smut, you've been warned)
> 
> [ PLAYLIST IS HERE ](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 

> 
> Also, thanks to [Reylocalligraphy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reylocalligraphy/pseuds/reylocalligraphy) and [Dandylion-puff](https://dandylion-puff.tumblr.com/), we have a gorgeous new piece of art! Check it out [here](https://dandylion-puff.tumblr.com/post/178659313003/reylocalligraphy-thanks-for-the-fun-commission)!

Sand in the hourglass stood still.

Thunder crashed through her blood, pounding in her ears. A gunshot of nerves and noise chambered and fired in her brain, and even as she tried to do  _something,_  Rey felt like she was moving underwater or waking up from a dream.

"Come on!"

Someone was shouting. Shouting and shaking and jerking and pulling and toomuchtoomuch _toomuch_ -

Like a rubber band snapping back in on itself, the world rushed into motion in high-flaring cinematic clarity. She caught up to the present with all the subtlety of canonfire and realized Phasma's hands were on her shoulders.

"Come  _on_! We need to get the fuck out of here!" the woman yelled right in Rey's face. Bits of terror ridden spittle hit Rey's skin, burning like acid. There was a wild hunted look in Phasma's eyes, simple intrinsic instinct guiding her every step.

She took a look around the diner, and swore loudly and as viciously as Rey had ever heard her. "Seriously, Rey we need to-"

It was hearing her name that shocked her from her stupor.

"Yeah," Rey breathed in, tasting the gas again and feeling the world around her once more since  _that man_  left. She blinked, and her world seemed to do a belly flop as she tried to skate forward, only to nearly collapse as whatever nervous reaction that had been holding her standing heaved and left her.

The smell. Oh  _God_  the smell. Was it stronger?

"Come on, come on, come on," Rey heard, and realized it was herself, and Phasma, trying to get her legs under her for balance. With a pitched and snarling kihap Rey managed to regain control of her body, falling into the tense, wary, but in control mentality she'd learned from Taekwondo. Her feet found purchase, and suddenly she and Phasma were flying through the diner, practically shattering the glass door on their way out.

They were outside and across the street before she realized it. The asphalt offered no challenge compared to the Herculean task of finding balance after the world dropped out from underneath them. Once in front of Luke's Rey frantically patted at her pockets, a tiny bit of her tension relaxing as she felt her phone.

Phasma noticed her ministrations and seemed to sag with relief.

"Call 911. Tell them we think there's a gas leak." She grimaced, and said anxiously, "Rey, we're on the same page, right? That was intentional, wasn't it?"

" _What about burning down a building, Miss Kenobi?_ " Rey murmured, touching her fingers to her lips as she stared at the diner, as if she couldn't believe what had just happened, or the words she was repeating. She noticed Phasma watching her carefully, wide eyed and nodding along. It was all Rey could muster to quietly say, "Yeah, Phas, that was intentional. You call 911. I'm calling Leia."

Both calls took considerably less time than Rey expected, and while they waited for the authorities to show up, Phasma placed additional calls to Maz and Hux. They took off their skates, forgoing them for the comforting and somewhat painful groove of the sidewalk on their socks. Rey would have complained about the harsh and scratchy feel any other time, but right then, discomfort was good. Discomfort was proof that she was still alive.

Rey knew the authorities showing up would undoubtedly get Luke and Ben's attention whether or not they'd already gone to sleep for the night, so after dropping the skates against side of the building, she gestured toward the Dojang's front while Phasma was on the phone. At her friend's nod, Rey let herself into the building and then ran up the stairs faster than she'd ever run before.

She muttered a quick apology when she realized her keys were back in the building that could potentially catch fire at any second, and she started pounding at the apartment's door.

The door flew open after a solid fifteen seconds of hard knocking that threatened to destroy her knuckles, and suddenly she found herself looking at Luke, his eyes eyes wide and bewildered.

"Kid, what the-"

"It's an emergency," she said quickly, "-at the diner."

Further in the apartment she saw Ben had stumbled drowsily out of his bedroom. She wasn't even aware of stepping inside, hands grasping at Luke and halfway to reaching for Ben when he came over, head tilted and curious. "Hey sweetheart, what're you doing here?"

Rey wasn't really sure what to say first, but the words flew from her lips as she stammered, "Snoke- diner. He- he showed up. There's gas leaking and-"

That's all it took.

Luke's face morphed into something grim as he grabbed the jackets hanging by the door, tossing one to Ben as he pushed past Rey and hurried outside. Before she could follow him, Ben dropped the jacket, caught her around the waist, and met her eyes with a wide, worried stare to rival her own. He pulled her against him, thumping her against his larger frame, and then pulled away to inspect her carefully. His voice was barely above a whisper as he started speaking. "Hey, are you okay? He didn't hurt-"

"No, he didn't. And I- I'm fine," she choked. Now that she was here, now that she could feel the chill of the winter air, the burning heat of Ben's skin against hers, she could feel the delayed reaction begin to take hold. Fear - basic, atavistic and directionless - settled over her like a net.

From his expression it was clear he knew she was lying, and he tucked her head under his chin and held her close. "You're okay, sweetheart," he said softly. "You're safe now. I promise."

Despite his tone, Rey could practically feel him vibrating with anger, and she wanted to believe him. She desperately wanted to, but…

"Ben,  _you_  weren't even safe from him," she breathed. "How am I supposed to be?" She pulled back a little, leaning in his arms so she could rest her hands against his chest and look up at him, "How are  _any_  of us supposed to be safe? I just- I didn't realize he'd go this far, but Ben he just showed up at the diner like he owned the place and I'll bet anything there's no way to prove he did anything wrong, and all it would have taken was a spark and we could have  _died_ , and-"

Ben's lips interrupted her words, which was almost definitely for the best, since she'd been about to start quite the nervous rant. His movements against her mouth were hasty and insistent, and maybe a little rougher than he might normally kiss her, and his hand clutched at the back of her head to hold her impossibly close. Comfort and a hint of relaxation spread in her, slowly counteracting all the terror and anxiety that had built up, and Rey sighed softly into him, letting his tongue plunder her mouth.

Their lips parted at the sound of sirens, and Ben rested his forehead against hers, still holding her head as he murmured, "I'm not going to let anything happen to you, starlight. I promise."

That time, she took a deep breath, and decided to trust him.

* * *

Phasma had never really thought of herself as the sort of person who ever had to depend on anyone. Sure, it was rather fantastic knowing that she could almost always count on Hux waiting for her with a home-cooked meal every night, even when she worked late, and  _yes_  it was nice to know she had a few friends she could drink and have fun with, but she was convinced she didn't  _need_  anyone.

Then again, she'd been wrong before, and she realized she was horribly wrong about not needing people as she waited nervously out in the cold, and felt an enormous amount of relief when she saw Master Luke rush out the door of his building.

"Phasma, what's going on?" he barked, looking her up and down to see if she was okay.

The man was a sight for sore eyes, and a voice in her head couldn't help but say  _Thank Gods an adult is here_ , as if she wasn't nearly thirty herself. "Snoke showed up while Rey and I were closing," she explained, biting at her lip. The cold was starting to get to her. Hux had been stuck pulling a rare late night at work, and even though he'd left as soon as she'd called, she'd probably be home by the time he got to her, so she'd ended up calling Rose, and now she hoped the girl would have an extra sweater or something. "He said something about us burning down his place and then he walked out and-"

"Rey said something about a gas leak?" Luke interrupted, not unkindly. The man was surprisingly composed for someone who'd just had this situation dumped on his doorstep.

Phasma nodded, feeling a shiver (either from the cold, or the situation, she wasn't sure) shoot through her. "Yeah, as soon as he left we started smelling it." Her skin pricked and taunted her with icy knives as the cold threatened to swallow her in recompense for her escape. "We've already called 911." A horrible thought struck her. She hesitated for a moment before saying quietly, "He meant for us to find out. This...this was just a  _threat._ "

The look Luke shot her told her he'd already surmised as such.

"I'm sure you're right," he said gruffly.

Before Phasma could respond, sirens sounded from nearby, and she winced as the noise got closer, a fire-truck finally pulling up in front of them. It was followed by two police cars, and as officers and fireman in uniform unloaded from their vehicles, she heard Luke say quietly, "You know how we have to handle this, right?"

Phasma took a deep breath and nodded. No one could say she wasn't adaptable at least. "Not a word? I'm assuming there won't be any evidence anyway."

"Not a word," he confirmed softly. "I have a bad feeling reporting it would cause more harm than good. Did one of you call Leia?"

Just as she was about to answer, Rey and Ben came out of the Dojang's side entrance and rushed over to where she and Luke stood on the sidewalk. Rey was wrapped in one of Ben's comically large sweaters and Phasma almost smiled at the way he kept his arm tight around them. The four of them didn't get a chance to exchange words before a police officer marched over to them.

She cleared her throat and said under her breath, "Rey, follow my lead, okay?"

The girl grimaced, but sighed, and nodded knowingly.

* * *

"I fucking  _hate_  that we didn't tell them what happened," Ben snapped. "He can't just show up and threaten things like that and get away with it!"

Rey let out a long breath and sunk into the overstuffed chair in her living room. She'd been listening to Ben rant for almost ten minutes since they'd gotten back to her apartment, and while she completely understood his frustration, there wasn't a whole lot they could do about it. The room was overly large and stuffy now, compared to the near-freezing temperatures from outside.

She'd spent almost an hour with Phasma explaining a highly fictional and spontaneously concocted version of events to the police and firemen who'd showed up. The evening was officially going on record as an accidental gas leak, but even Maz, who'd showed up maybe twenty minutes after Leia and Rose, knew better. She'd gone along with the story, of course, but then she'd been filled in on the details by Leia, and when Ben had insisted on taking Rey home, Rey last saw the two women discussing installing security cameras on both diner entrances.

For all the good that it'd do, the jaded part of her added.

Rey had been mildly curious about the fact that Phasma's second choice of phone call was Rose, but it had already been a long night and Ben seemed anxious to get her home, so she settled for asking her roommate about it another time. For now, she was a bit relieved that Rose was apparently spending the night elsewhere, because Ben was still ranting and-

"-could have  _died_ , Rey! I  _know_  that Luke's right about not being able to pin this on him, but I  _really_  don't like-"

"I know, Ben," she interrupted firmly, wrapping his blanket further around her. "I know. Trust me, I don't like it either. But Leia and Maz said something about installing security cameras and," she shrugged helplessly. "Honestly, Ben, I'm not sure what else there is to do."

She paused at the annoyed look he shot her and said, "Look. He has the ability to strip at least two of you of your belts, and he wasn't shy about mentioning that tonight. It's more than that though - he  _has_  something on us. I don't know if it's video of what happened that night or what, but he wouldn't be just showing up and blatantly threatening us like this if he didn't have  _something_."

Ben's eyes slammed shut as he let out an angry breath and fell back onto the couch. He was silent for a few minutes, and she watched him carefully as he took quite a few deep breaths and drummed his fingers on his knee.

"You're right," he said finally. "I know that, logically, but it just makes me more upset. Knowing Snoke, he probably has stuff on all of us. And I  _know_  Luke's right, that reporting Snoke's involvement will make things harder for my mother to handle things behind the scenes but-"

Yeah, he was about to get started again. Rey considered it for a moment, deciding on how best to calm him down, and took a page out of his book. She let go of the blanket and got up out of the little nest she'd made herself in the chair, took two steps and climbed into Ben's lap while he was ranting.

Ben stopped, and blinked at her, then sighed.

"I was doing it again, wasn't I?" he asked quietly, wrapping his arms around her hips. He pulled her against his chest, into a hug as he said, "Sorry sweetheart. I'm just-"

"Scared?" she whispered, nestling against his shoulder. The t-shirt he wore was soft cotton, smelling faintly of motor oil that was just never going to fully wash out, and she could feel his warmth through it.

Rey felt him nod, and he murmured, "I knew he was angry about everything, but I didn't realize he would take things this far. I- uh," he cleared his throat, and sighed against her as his grip around her tightened, "I'm kind of freaked out about this. I assume it's me he wants to hurt, and hurting you is obviously the easiest way to do that." He hesitated, and said, "I hope it doesn't piss you off, but I'm probably going to be around more, even if it's just for my own sanity. Maybe you can stay over at the apartment more often? And I know Maz is putting up security cameras, but would you mind if I start walking over to pick you up from work?"

Rey bit her lip, and sat back in his arms, considering him carefully. She was quite torn between thinking his reaction was very sweet, and being a little defensive about being able to protect herself.

"You know I can take care of myself, right?" Rey asked calmly, "Plus, Phasma's almost always with me when I close up the diner. And even if you'd been there tonight, things wouldn't have gone any better. They probably would have gone worse."

Ben worked his lips together, and she got the impression that he was about to argue, but he just nodded. "I know, sweetheart. If you don't want me to, I don't  _like_  that, but…" his eye twitched slightly, as if his entire body was threatening to fight against what he was about to say, "but I can accept that it's up to you."

_Smart man._

She smiled at him, and said, "I  _guess_  having some extra time with my boyfriend might not be such a terrible thing. Who knows, maybe you'll need to be rescued again."

The palpable tension that had built up in him relaxed almost immediately, and he gave her a grateful smile. "I'm sorry," he said softly, moving one of his hands from her waist up to cup her face, "I was just really worried about you, sweetheart."

Rey nodded and leaned against his chest, pressing a line of soft kisses against his jaw until her lips met his ear, "Why don't you take me to bed? I'm not sure how much sleep I'll get tonight if I'm not in your arms."

"Yeah," he sighed, "I know how you feel. There's no chance I'm leaving you here alone tonight. Or...probably any night, if that's okay. At least until all of this is figured out."

She let him pull her closer and lift her up as he started walking them toward her bedroom, and she listened to his breathing as she said, "Of course it's okay, Ben."

* * *

"-and that's what happened," Ben huffed. "Obviously the police don't know the whole story, so nothing's going to come of it."

Kaydel kept stirring her tea. It was her second cup since they'd started half an hour earlier. Ben had been talking for at least a good twenty of those minutes, filling the expectant air in the office with words that failed to grasp the true extent of the fires of Hephaestus in his blood.

A simple and subdued piano melody decorated the silence between them. Ben recognized it as the third track from her "Relaxing" playlist, which normally did serve as a good backdrop for their sessions, but right then just seemed like a huge joke.

"Has he come back since?" she asked.

It had only been a few days, but Ben was still struggling to get it off his mind. His lip curled in a vicious snarl at the idea of  _him_ returning, but he restrained himself. "No, thank God," he breathed, "I'm not sure what I'd do if he ever did."

She wore a burnt peach colored blouse and that meshed prettily with the sensible dark brown trousers she had. Writing glasses were perched on her nose as she sipped at her tea, watching Ben carefully, raising her eyebrow at his statement.

"Did you find out what happened?" she asked, leaning forward to prop one elbow on her knee even as she continued writing in the notepad.

Ben leaned back in his seat, reaching for the white pillow that had become his go-to whenever the urge to do something with his hands came up.

"There were some scratches around the backdoor lock. We think someone picked their way inside, but, obviously we can't prove anything. The door leads out a public back alley so whoever came in was long gone by the time we noticed. We think they snuck in and left the stove on max while the girls were distracted by... _him."_

Kaydel's expression twitched uncomfortably at the vitriol in last word. "I've noticed you don't use his name often."

Ben hesitated, and realized she was right. He shrugged, and uttered, "That's because he doesn't deserve the honor. The man's..." he stopped for a moment, and got quiet, saying, "he's not a man. He's a monster."

Kaydel observed him, and nodded softly. "From what you've told me, it sounds like you've had a radical change of opinion since we've started. He was once your master - someone you looked up to."

Ben shrugged and didn't meet her eyes. She was earnest in her attempts to sympathize, but even months after they'd started, Ben wasn't keen on sharing the details. Hell, he hadn't even shared some of those details with Rey or Hux or anyone else. As far as he cared those memories could fade into the oblivion of age, as long as he wouldn't have to deal with them.

"He's not a person I recommend meeting," Ben said at last. "He's..."

He wanted to say evil. Evil would have been simple.

Crooning, soothing words made of barbed wire came to mind. Long nights of relentless drills, and fights, and experts pointing out flaws in his style, in his stance, in his head. Ben remembered the bruises that took weeks to fade, the days of controlled meals to achieve maximum potential, the days of silent practice broken only by the sound of bodies hitting mats or the chug of water. He remembered wondering if he was dead or alive at that point and which option would have been better. Which one would make him feel...less.

Evil was too good a word for the deathlike embrace of Snoke's attention.

"Dangerous," he decided on at last.

Kaydel put her teacup on the table, and leaned forward, and placed a small comforting hand on his knee. She paused. "Can I ask you something?"

Ben frowned, and said not unkindly, "Isn't that why I'm here?"

"You're really the only one who can answer that," she replied, with all the clarity of a magic-eight ball. She sat back, and finally asked, "Now that you see him differently, can you pinpoint when he stopped being a mentor, and started being...well, as you put it, a monster?"

 _That_  was not something he'd thought about. He sipped at his tea for a moment and sighed. "No," he answered honestly, "I can't. Looking back, it- it didn't happen all at once. I know my leaving the situation all happened during one night, for one reason, but he'd been changing before then."

"What do you mean?" she asked softly.

"Well," Ben took a deep breath and sat his tea down, kneading at the pillow next to him, "In a Master-Student relationship like you have in Taekwondo, you have to  _trust_  each other. Implicitly. When your Master gives you a command, you don't think about it. You just  _do_  it. You have to trust and believe that your Master is only ever asking you to do things you're capable of, and you have to believe they have what's best for you in mind."

He looked up and noticed Kaydel give a soft nod. "And did you have that sort of relationship?"

"I thought so," Ben whispered. "For a while. The whole time, until that night. But…" his fingers nearly strangled the pillow, and he let out a long, calming breath before he responded, "I trusted him so much that I never questioned things."

The room was silent, until she spoke up over her cup and said, "Should you have? Questioned them?"

He didn't want to answer.

He  _didn't_.

He wanted to push it all down and shove it into a little box and use all of the unhealthy coping mechanisms that would at least slap a band-aid over everything and let him only have the occasional nightmare. At least then he wouldn't have to think about it often, and he wouldn't have to answer that question and place blame and-

"Yes," he whispered.

Shoving it into a box wouldn't solve his problems, and Ben knew, on some level, that things always escape the cages they're shoved into. Maybe not right away. Sometimes it took years, but…

One way or another, things broke out, and the longer you kept something in a cage, the more angry and volatile it would be when it finally broke out.

He should know.

"Yes," Ben admitted, hoping that repeating it would make it easier to swallow. "I should have seen it. I guess...I guess I  _did_  see it at some point, because my gut reaction was to keep Rey away from it all, but...but it started slow, and by the time I noticed it, it felt like it was too late."

"It started slow?" Kaydel prompted, though, not in a prying way.

He nodded, and considered his words before saying, "The...corruption. It started slow. At the beginning, I was never asked or told to do anything unreasonable. Training was hard, but it wasn't anything outside the norm."

She stood, and moved to pour herself more tea, asking, "And that changed?"

His throat went dry, memories of sharp weapons and orders to travel to Tatooine coming to mind.

"Yeah. But, by then I trusted him, and I didn't question...or, maybe I just didn't notice it, when he started asking me to do things that were unusual."

Kaydel sat back in her seat and crossed one leg over the other as she tilted her head, and said calmly, "Did that trust take long to build?"

"Not really," he answered vaguely.

She seemed to get that they were headed in a direction he didn't feel like going, so she redirected them, saying, "If you don't mind me asking, we've never discussed what drew you to him in the first place. Is that something you're comfortable discussing?"

"I wasn't really  _drawn in_ ," Ben said frankly, "it's more than I was just leaving Luke's Dojang and needed a new place to practice."

 _That_  caught her attention. "Luke? Your uncle, right? Why were you leaving?"

He froze, and stumbled over his words as memories of one of the most painful and regrettable nights came to the front of his mind. "We- we had a difference of opinion. There was an... _altercation_ , and I left."

"Altercation?" Kaydel's eyes narrowed. "Did you fight? Physically, I mean?"

"Not with Luke," he whispered, mostly to himself. A minute or two later he realized he was clutching at the pillow so tightly he was apt to rip the fabric, and he let out a shuddering breath as he reached over and set it down a few feet away. "Sorry," he muttered. He cleared his throat, and said again, "Sorry. It's just...that was the last night I saw my father. I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay," she agreed, "That's fine. By now, I hope you know we don't need to discuss anything you aren't comfortable with." After a moment, Kaydel added softly, "Ben, I hope I'm not crossing a line when I say this, but I think - I  _hope_  - this advice will help."

Relief had washed over him at the reminder that he didn't need to talk about... _that_  topic, but he glanced over curiously at the mention of advice. Sessions often didn't include her giving much advice. More often than not, she just listened, and occasionally asked questions to help guide conversations, so the mention of  _advice_  was a bit new.

Kaydel hesitated, and said quietly, "So far, from our conversations, I've gotten the impression that you've only truly had two father figures in your life. Your uncle, and…" she paused, clearly avoiding the name, "and the  _other_  man you trained under. I haven't heard you mention your father before."

"No, you probably haven't," he murmured, "that's not something I like to talk about."

"I've also never seen you react the way you just did. With the pillow, I mean," Kaydel said softly. "I understand that it's not something you want to talk about, but if you're alright with it, I'm going to assign you some homework."

"Homework?" He'd never heard of homework outside of school, but then again, he'd never looked too deeply into the mechanics of therapy either.

"Think of it as an assignment, or a project. We call it homework because that's the easiest idea clients tend to latch on to."

"Alright," he said slowly. "What do you want me to do?"

"We don't have to talk about it in our next session if you don't want to," Kaydel reassured, "But before bed, if you were thinking about Luke or your father or even that  _other_  man during the day, and you were feeling strongly about something at the time, write down what. It doesn't have to be much, or even be in full sentences. Even just a few words would be good."

Ben watched her, wary and vigilant for the other shoe to drop. He didn't think he could ever be friends with her, but he knew he could trust her, in her own way.

"A journal?" he asked, dripping a little more cynicism than strictly necessary, "And we won't have to talk about it?"

"Not if you don't want to."

"...I'll think about it."

* * *

Once Kaydel made mention of him writing down anything addressing the elephant in the room (ie.  _Han_ ), it was like some imaginary force was following Ben around, jabbing him with a stick and muttering  _Han_  or  _dad_  every time his mind drifted elsewhere.

It started in therapy, and followed him to Rey's. Two days after his session with Kaydel, he'd sat Rey on her dresser for... _reasons_. Reasons that involved sex.

But he'd caught a glimpse of something a few feet away on a small table that he hadn't noticed before and  _obviously_  he'd been way too distracted at the time sucking at his girlfriend's neck and seeing what kind of noises he could get out of her to care about what it was, but once they'd managed to both finish and knock more than a few things off said dresser, he happened to take a good look at it.

It was a record player.  _Han's_  record player.

Ben hadn't mentioned it (what a mood-killer that would have been) and instead decided to push it from his mind and take advantage of an empty apartment, and he'd carried Rey into the shower where they'd inevitably gone for a second round. She was fucking  _insatiable._

Anyway, he'd thought it was over once he noticed the records, but he'd been really, really wrong.

It hadn't happened again for maybe a month, and thankfully Kaydel hadn't brought his father up since. They'd mostly focused on Ben's reactions to Snoke's actions at the diner, and Ben's frustration at not being able to do much about it. That was plenty to work through, as it turned out. He'd put in a token effort, gone and bought a moleskin journal specifically for those days he felt the words wouldn't bleed out of him onto the paper, but he still stopped any mention of his late father's name from passing his lips.

But then he'd gone to work one day, walking in the garage to hear CCR's  _Fortunate Son_ , and while it should have just been a decent classic rock song that happened to be on the radio, it stirred up memories.

Memories Ben thought had died.

Again, he'd been really,  _really_  wrong.

Between the song and the smell of motor oil, it was like Ben was six years old all over again. Suddenly he was looking up at the goofy giant he called "Dad" and running his greasy muddy hands along the spaceship they called the Falcon. They were listening to records that Ben was positive would serve as the soundtrack of their lives, laughing, poking, yelling, and even occasionally insulting each other because apparently, Han Solo was incapable of getting respect even from his six year old brat.

Old images of his father ducking under a hood with a young Ben right next to him flitted through his mind. Ben remembered being held up under one of Han's arms as the man used his other hand to point out the different parts of the car's engine. He remembered the wish to never leave that garage again, the impossible desire to get in the front seat along his "Dad" and go on a never-ending adventure.

He remembered his dad laughing and calling him his boy when Ben told him. And Ben remembered how the words and the laugh - obvious and silly with raw affection - had made his own face blush and prompted a young Ben to spray WD-40 on his dad's jeans in retaliation.

Echos of  _good job kid, yeah, that's how we check the oil_  and  _someday this one'll be yours, kid_  rang through his ears. The familiar, and long-forgotten (but not actually forgotten) feeling of his hair being ruffled, or a large protective hand clapping him proudly on the back came to mind, and raised bumps on his skin.

Ben paused, just inside the door of the garage, shut his eyes, and took a deep breath. It was almost time to face facts. He hadn't forgotten, but he hadn't dealt with it either.

He wasn't going to deal with it today, though.

"Heya kid," Lando greeted, waving while he leaned against one of the workbenches. "'Bout time you showed up! You gonna' bring that pretty girl around any time soon?"

He huffed. "No offense, Uncle Lando, but this place isn't the best  _date_  destination."

"Oh don't be so sure about that," the man winked. "Tell me you at least have plans for Valentine's with that girl. First one, right?"

Ben groaned, "Yeah, well, tell that to Uncle Luke. We've got a promotion scheduled for that weekend.  _Trust me_ , that's not what I had in mind either, but," he shrugged, "thanks to that, we'll spend the weekend in testing and passed out from exhaustion."

"And not exhaustion due to  _fun_  reasons, I'm guessing," Lando chuckled with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Uh,  _no_ ," Ben laughed, shaking his head. "Alright, well, what have you got for me today? And where's Chewie?"

"Out on a run," Lando replied, "That's why I'm here - he called and asked if I could cover until you got here. Someone got stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a couple of flats and Chewie said he owed 'em a favor, so he won't be back for a while. I  _do_  have something for you to work on, though."

Ben waited expectantly, and when the man didn't respond, he frowned, and asked, "Well?"

"It's time, kid."

His eyes narrowed, not really understanding. Then Lando gestured to the car that had taken up a spot in the corner of the garage. The car he hadn't touched in a while.

"C'mon, Ben," the man said quietly, "We both know that car's just about done. You have less than a day's work on her left on it, and you haven't worked on her in over a month."

Ben swallowed hard, not taking his eyes off the Falcon, and admitted, "You're right. I'm just not sure I'm ready."

After a minute, he watched Lando nod, and hand him the keys. A small set of silver dice, matching the ones hanging from the car's rear view mirror, hung from the keychain. "We're never ready to face our demons, kid. Doesn't mean we get to avoid them."

Finally, Ben took a deep breath, and nodded.

* * *

It hadn't even taken a full day's labor. Ben finished up the last bit of necessary work and rolled out from under the Falcon just in time to see Chewie and his mother walk into the garage.

"Hey, I see you finally decided to finish the old girl up," Chewie commented. He smiled, and said, "Good for you, kid."

Ben gave him a tight smile. Fixed or not, he wasn't entirely sure he was ready to drive the car. He stayed put on the floor while they came over to chat, and Chewie offered him a massive hand, pulling Ben up to stand upright. "Thanks, Chewie," he replied quietly. A thought crossed his mind, and he added, "Actually, I came across something while figuring out the buttons in the dash, and I was wondering if you'd know what it was."

His mother leaned over and pulled him down to kiss his cheek, and then walked off to talk to Lando while Ben walked around to the driver's side door. He tried not to think about it much when he climbed in, and pointed to the little rectangular latch in the dash. "It looks like a little door," he explained to Chewie, "I'm just not sure what it is. I tried getting it open but…" he shrugged.

Chewie hummed curiously. "Never noticed it. I don't think it was there last time I drove her, but keep in mind, that was years ago. Back when you were just a kid. Your dad made a lot of additions over the years, and I'm sure that's probably one of them."

Ben frowned, but nodded. "Alright, thanks. I'll figure it out." He climbed out of the car and walked over to where Leia was standing, apparently waiting for him by the door.

"How's everything going?" she asked, smiling up at him. He'd been making a point to spend more time with her, either to make up for lost time, or just as a  _thank you_  for all the work she was doing to keep them all safe, and he was more than a little thankful that she hadn't tried to get him to talk about his progress in therapy.

"Good. Oh, Rey said to invite you to a game night we're having next week," he said offhandedly, "I'm not sure what we're playing, but Uncle Luke's going to be there. I think it'll be the four of us, plus Phasma and Hux, Rose, Poe...Finn. The whole crowd."

His mother quirked an eyebrow and teased, "Well look at you being  _social_." Ben rolled his eyes at her, but she just smiled and nodded, "Sure. Text me the details, and I'll be there." She paused, and added, "Speaking of Rey, how's it going? I heard Luke cackling about ruining potential Valentine's plans, and trust me, I already scolded the old fool."

The thing about being asked about Rey was that he just couldn't help but grin like a damn lovestruck moron.

"She's amazing," he said quietly, "As usual. I'm sure the promotion will go well. I think it still surprises her when the lower belts look to her for advice, but she's handling it better than she thinks. I'm  _so_  proud of her. She'll have five stripes-" he huffed, realizing what had been bothering him, "Wait...she should be testing for her second dan. I wonder why Luke's holding her back."

Ben happened to glance up at his mother and saw a look cross her face that indicated she knew more about that than he did. "Do you know why she's being held back?" he asked curiously.

"I do," Leia nodded. She pursed her lips and seemed to mumble something to some unknown person except herself. "It's not my place to say though. The circumstances weren't the best when it happened, but things are better now."

"What? What do you mean 'when it happened'?"

Unfortunately, she just shook her head. "This is one of those things you should hear from Rey. Don't worry, she and Luke have patched things up. It wasn't pretty, and I think I scared a few years off her afterwards, but things are okay now."

* * *

"I can't  _believe_  you got Master Luke to agree to Cards Against Humanity," Phasma cackled. "Does the man have any idea what he's signed up for?"

Rey smirked as she finished wiping down the last table at Maz's. The woman (read:  _angel_ ) had decided to close up early since there was some big food-truck fair in town (though why they were having it in early February, when there was a foot of snow on the ground, she'd never understand) and business had been slow. She'd said a quick goodbye and told them she was taking the rest of the day off, and before she'd left, Rey had gotten her permission to use the diner as she wished.

For as evil as the woman was, Maz was also pretty wonderful, and thanks to her, Rey and Phasma were setting up for a group game night. There wasn't really enough room at Luke's for everyone, and there was considerably more space at the diner, so she and Phasma were setting multiple tables together while they waited for the whole gang.

She bit her lip. "I  _might_  have just told him we were playing cards."

After a moment's silence she glanced up and saw Phasma shaking her head, and the woman snorted. "Well done, cupcake. I'm sure he'll be  _thrilled_  when he sees what sort of  _cards_  we're playing with. No way this could end poorly."

Before Rey could snark back, Ben and Hux walked in, followed by Luke and Leia. She hadn't really seen much of Leia since the incident with Snoke, but the woman, though composed as ever, looked like she needed a night of fun.

"Hi sweetheart," she greeted Rey kindly, giving her a big hug. It was still taking Rey a little getting used to...thinking of Leia as not just  _Leia_  but as her boyfriend's mom. It added a little extra layer of pressure.

Ben gave her a big smile when he came in, and pushed past Hux, who was setting a few bags of takeout down (Maz had specifically  _not_  given them permission to use the kitchen), and nodded politely to his mother before wrapping Rey in a massive, crushing hug.

"Ben," she laughed, "I just saw you  _three_  hours ago."

He buried his head in her neck and sighed against her skin, saying quietly, "Still missed you." He let her go and swooped down for a kiss that was far too quick for her taste, but appropriate, considering the fact that his mother and uncle were in the room. "So, are we just waiting on Finn, Poe, and Rose?"

"Yep," Phasma piped up, "Rose texted me, they should be here any minute."

Rey's eyes narrowed, but she didn't comment. That was something she'd noticed more lately - Rose and Phasma were definitely becoming better friends. Not that Rey minded. She adored them both, so  _why_  would she mind? But…

She had her theories. She hadn't voiced them, and wouldn't do so until one of them felt like talking about it to her, but she had her theories.

The last three arrived just minutes later, and everyone chatted for a minute or two before finally claiming seats around the couple of tables she and Phasma had set up. Ben gave her a wink, saying, "Save me a seat next to you, sweetheart," as he left to lock the diner's door and put up the  _closed_  sign.

Rey sat down and pulled out the black box Poe had brought, noticing with slight awkwardness that Luke was looking at the box curiously. "I thought you said we were playing cards, kid," he grumbled, his arms crossed. He'd sat directly across the table from Rey, between Leia and Phasma (a terrifying combination if she'd ever seen one).

Just as Ben sat down next to her, she cleared her throat and said, "Well, it's  _sort of_ a card game…"

"A card game for horrible people!" Poe added cheerfully. "You're gonna love it Master Luke!"

The man studied Rey carefully and huffed, saying grumpily, "Why do I get the feeling that's not the case?"

"Oh relax, old man," Leia scolded, smacking his arm lightly. "You'll survive." She directed her attention to the rest of the table and said, "Okay kids, who's teaching the adults how to play?"

The table went silent, until finally, Rose groaned and gestured for Rey to hand her the box, "You're all a bunch of chickens," she grumbled. "Complete chickens."

* * *

Ben had  _tried_ suggesting Monopoly. He really had. He wasn't entirely sure whose idea it had been to settle on involving his own mother and uncle in the most inappropriate card game he'd ever seen (short of the kind of drinking games he and Hux had occasionally taken part in during college), but he seriously hoped that person was truly suffering and regretting the idea.

The first two rounds weren't completely terrible. It seemed everyone was mostly playing throwaway cards, and nobody had really made waves. Rose won a round, and Finn won a round, and nobody got offended.

And then it was Poe  _fucking_ Dameron's turn.

Ben watched as Poe drew a black card, read it to himself, and then burst out into laughter. That...didn't bode well. Finally, the man read, turning a little red in the cheeks, "Fun Tip! When your man asks you to go down on him, try surprising him with  _blank_  instead."

Great. That was...just  _great_.

He tried not to look toward his uncle (or  _mother_ , seriously, who the fuck wanted to play this with their parents?) as he picked the most innocent card he could. Thankfully the ones he currently held were relatively harmless, but he had a bad feeling they weren't all that way. Plucking the card from his hand, he tossed it face-down onto the pile everyone was contributing to. Finally chancing a look up, he saw a grim expression on Luke's face, and a concerningly amused one on his mother's.

Poe grabbed the pile and cleared his throat, shuffling them a bit before he started to read them off. "Okay," he said, "just a reminder, the black card was: Fun Tip! When your man asks you to go down on him, try surprising him with  _blank_  instead. So, we have:  _Teeth_...yikes, nope, not that one. Uh,  _genuine human connection_?  _Landmines_?" Poe huffed and rolled his eyes, "Seriously, guys? Booooring. Moving along…oh here's a good one.  _Vomiting mid blow-job_. Nice _._ "

Ben cringed and slapped a hand to his face. Whose idea was it to play this without alcohol?

"That one might win it," Poe commented. Everyone seemed to be staying quiet, likely in an attempt not to give away whose card was whose. "Okay, we've also got  _a bitch slap_. Interesting.  _Worshipping that pussy?_ C'mon guys, know your audience.  _A micropig wearing a tiny raincoat and booties?_  That's...weirdly adorable. And-" Poe paused, and his brows furrowed at the last card. He snorted, and read it off. " _A little boy who won't shut the fuck up about dinosaurs_. Uh. I think that one wins it. That's both weird and hilarious."

Ben watched, mildly horrified as his own mother collected the card.

"Okay, I have to ask," Poe laughed, "Who put in the vomiting one? Because I'm worried you're doing it wrong."

The table went silent, but Ben happened to catch a glimpse of Rey blushing, and nibbling at her lip. "Just because someone put the card out doesn't mean it's ever happened to them," she reasoned, sounding  _completely_  defensive, and Ben suddenly wanted nothing more than to sink into the floor and disappear. "I mean, someone played  _teeth_."

"Some men like that," Phasma smiled broadly, completely ignoring the incredulous look Hux shot her. "We can talk later, cupcake. More importantly, I want to know which of you kinky bastards played  _bitch slap_."

Rose cracked a smile, and Ben was more than a little taken aback to see her wink at Phasma and say, "Who said it was a guy?"

Ben watched, even more confused as Phasma grinned salaciously, but didn't respond.

"Ohhkay," Finn drawled, sounding just as confused as Ben felt, "Uh, I think it's my turn."

Everyone drew new cards per game rules as Finn read off his black card, "What brought the orgy to a grinding halt?"

Ben sighed, seeing the exasperated and unamused expression on his uncle's face. This wasn't  _exactly_  what he'd had in mind for game night. Oddly enough, his mother was wearing a malicious grin, and tossed her card in without a second thought. He picked another harmless one in knowing it wouldn't win, and glanced over to see that Rey had already played hers. Smiling slightly at her, he leaned over to kiss her cheek, and only looked up as Finn spoke up.

"This should be a weird one," he chirped. "Okay, what ended the orgy?  _Not having sex_." Finn hesitated and shrugged, " _Emotional baggage?_  Uh, alright, sure. Kinda lame, guys, I hope you did better than that."

Then Finn blinked, and quirked his lips at a card, reading off, " _Coming deep inside my best bro?_ Not really sure how that ends an orgy, but whatever." His eyes widened at the next couple cards, and he shook his head as if surprised, "Wow, you guys are kinda fucked up.  _Warm, velvety muppet sex? Ripping open a man's chest and pulling out his still-beating heart?_ I mean, shit, that'd end an orgy…anyway,  _going around punching people?_  Yeah," he nodded, "sure, that works.  _Me?_  Is- is that a knock at me?"

The group collectively shrugged as he glanced around at them, and he rolled his eyes, grabbing the last card. Finn froze as he saw it, and a wide, devilish smile grew over his face as he whispered, "Oh, one of you is  _so_  getting into trouble for this one."

Ben raised an eyebrow, noticing the man's reluctance to read it off. He watched as Finn showed it to Poe, who immediately burst out into belly laughs.

"Read the card, Finn," Leia said, a knowing and devious smirk on her face. "Go ahead, I'm sure nobody will mind."

Finally Finn cleared his throat and repeated the original black card text, "What brought the orgy to a grinding halt? ...uh, apparently there's a blank card someone filled in. They wrote in  _Grand Master Luke Skywalker."_

"Oh my God," Rey gasped quietly, just before starting to giggle. Ben looked over at her, mostly in horror, as she slapped a hand over her mouth and muttered, " _Shit_ , I thought I took that one out."

"Well, obviously this one wins," Finn chuckled, nodding politely to Luke, "No offense, sir."

The man sighed, and (thankfully), let out a breathy laugh. "With this group, I can't say I'm surprised." Then Luke paused, and asked, "I do want to know who put it in, though. I'd love to know who's doing more pushups in class tomorrow."

"Good luck with that," Leia said dryly, side-eyeing her brother.

 _That_  was when it clicked for Ben, and the rest of the table, apparently, because everyone started letting out snorts and giggles. Ben huffed, and looked over to Rey, saying, "I actually thought  _you'd_  put that one in."

"Nah," Rey waved him off, "I put in  _me._ " She gave him a bit of a grin and leaned in, whispering into his ear suggestively, "I don't share. You're  _mine_." She hesitated for a minute, and added, her breath caressing his skin, "I'm happy to prove it to you later."

He blinked, and swallowed hard, nodding slowly to her as she continued to grin.

Rey was going to be the death of him, no doubt about it.

* * *

Realistically, Rey knew there was no need to  _stake her claim_. Her boyfriend wasn't her property, and it's not like he ever bothered even looking at anyone else anyway. She'd never really felt threatened in that way. Apparently once someone's nearly died for you, there's no point in being insecure, and Rey certainly wasn't. There was no doubt in her mind when it came to Ben, or his feelings for her.

...but that didn't mean it wasn't a bit fun to get territorial once in a while.

" _Mine_ ," she whispered into his ear, grinding down onto him, reveling in the groan he let out.

He'd walked her home after their game night, and apparently Rose had agreed to watch a couple movies at Phasma and Hux's, so the apartment was all theirs, at least for most of the evening. It had taken Rey all of three seconds to practically drag Ben into her bedroom, and two of those had been busy taking off her shoes.

Though, of course, he was certainly playing along, completely willing, because there was no way she could actually push him around. The guy was massive and had only managed to  _gain_  muscle while working at the garage, which was really just unfair.

Incredibly sexy, but unfair.

"Fucking hell, Rey," he gasped as she rolled her bare hips against him again, "If you keep doing that this is going to be over before we get started."

There was something addictive about how powerful that made her feel. This marvelous, unbelievably alluring man who could pick her up on a whim with a single arm, and was by definition, all  _alpha_  male...just falling to pieces under the roll of her hips, or the touch of her hands.

Rey hummed at the thought.

Once they'd gotten into her bedroom they hadn't wasted any time, divesting each other of clothing almost immediately. Then her eyes had focused in on his, and saw that they were dark, but also wide and almost...naked. Exposed. Maybe a little vulnerable.

 _Hers_.

With a single hand, she'd pushed him to sit on the edge of the bed, and then lay back on it completely, and he'd gotten the idea, scooting back on it to lay under her while she climbed over him.

And when she saw the blazing look he was staring up at her with she grinned, and trailed her nails down from his shoulders to where her thighs rested on either side of his waist, taking note of how he shuddered at the motion. That's when she'd started rolling her hips, and Ben had let out a quiet and unsteady breath.

"Are you just going to play with me all night, sweetheart?" he murmured, trying and failing to keep the tremor out of his voice as she reached down to grab him, and she lifted up on her knees to slide him teasingly along the wet slick that had built up at her entrance.

She smiled sweetly. "I'm sure I have no idea what you mean."

Ben groaned and swore under his breath as she tightened her grip around him. His hands reached to grasp her her hips in a feeble attempt to direct her where he wanted her, but she just gave a quiet laugh and shook her head. "I'm having fun," she whispered playfully, winking at him. "Is that a problem?"

"It's going to be a problem if I'm not in you in the next minute or two," he rumbled, his voice filled with more warning than promise. "I think we both know I'll get what I want."

Rey almost shivered at that. He  _knew_  she loved the fact that he could overpower her easily if he wanted to, and fighting for dominance sparked a fire in both of them. She rolled her hips again, daring him to do something about it, and murmured, "Maybe you'll have to  _take_  what you want."

If Ben's eyes had been dark before, they were nearly black now. His grip on her hips became bruising and she ground down against him again, but he interrupted her in the middle of the movement, lifting her and flipping them over, pushing her back onto the mattress in the spot where he'd been laying. He growled and gently smacked away her hands, which were trying to push against his shoulders to get him back to their original position-

 _Wow_  he was strong. Her mind couldn't help but remind her of that and she gasped when he eventually caught her wrists and pressed them into the pillow over her head.

"No more teasing, sweetheart," he rumbled, leaning down to nibble and lick at one of her nipples.

His hips thrust against hers, and Rey moaned. "I thought you said no teasing? Or is it just me who isn't allowed to tease?"

She met his eyes and saw a light smirk play across his lips as he gave a quick nod, and adjusted himself a bit, then thrust inside her in a single move. Rey let out a cry that was more from surprise than anything else, and she heard Ben catch his breath, and then chuckle lowly as he asked, "Is this what you wanted, sweetheart?"

Unable to bring herself to form much in the way of coherent thought, she only nodded, and squeezed her legs around him while he picked up a punishing pace. They'd done this countless times, and Rey was positive she'd never tire of it.

" _Fuck_ , yes," she moaned, pulling at the wrists that were still being firmly pressed into a pillow. "Please, harder-"

His hips slammed into hers and every time he slid into her it was with a slick noise and a slapping of skin on skin, and Rey was almost completely convinced she'd never get used to feeling so  _full_. It was overwhelming, and always just on the cusp of being too much without ever quite crossing that line. Her eyes slammed shut as he lifted her legs up to his shoulders, changing the angle so he was pushing in even deeper.

" _So_  fucking tight, Rey," he groaned, turning his head to nip at the bit of her leg that rested on his shoulder, "Still can't believe you take me so well." She tightened her muscles around him at those words and heard him mutter a few swears. " _Shit_ , are you doing that on purpose?"

"I  _might_ -" her words were cut off with a particularly hard thrust that had her mouth dropping open in a loud, breathy cry. Ben leaned down over her, and she had the sense of mind to be thankful she was flexible enough for her legs to get so close to her chest. He caught her mouth in his and sucked and bit her lower lip, continuing to work at it with his teeth as his hips continued to piston away at her.

The angle had changed, and it still felt amazing, but she wasn't chasing the impending orgasm she had been before, so she pushed up on his chest, groaning, "Sit back, on your feet."

It took Ben mere seconds to realize what she was getting at, and stayed in her while he lifted off her upper body and sat back, pulling her hips up into his lap. He started railing away again, and in the new position she was able to reach down and and work at her clit. Her breath started coming in short gasps, and Ben continued to hold her hips and thrust into her in a way that was quickly threatening to overwhelm her completely.

" _Fuck_  I can feel you tightening around me, sweetheart," he choked, "Are you doing that on purpose again or are you-"

"I'm close," she breathed, quickly sliding fingers over the sensitive nub she'd long stopped just teasing. "Really close,  _so_  close."

His teeth clamped down on the flesh of the leg over his shoulder, and quivers started racking her system, and she moved her fingers faster, and-

"Scream for me, sweetheart," he murmured. "I want to hear you."

It was all building up so fast - almost  _too_  fast, and Rey half-thought she needed to escape from the pressure that was rapidly rising between her legs, but Ben held her in place and kept working at her while her legs shook, and finally-

Pressure broke through the dam, and an intense wave of pleasure rose up and rushed from her center out to the tips of her toes, and out throughout the rest of her body as she called out his name and came hard, just as he'd demanded. Ben thrusted into her shakily a few more times before he groaned against her skin and came deep inside her.

They stayed there for a few minutes as he continued to pulse in her, and Rey giggled softly while he released her legs from his shoulders and leaned down to nuzzle his nose to hers.

"You  _really_  don't mind me being so rough?" Ben asked nervously, kissing at her jaw.

Rey snorted. "I'm pretty sure it was my idea, and you could be a lot rougher than that." She paused, and added, "I uh, wouldn't mind getting to be in control once in a while though, you know."

He hummed against her skin, settling over her gently as he sighed. "I know. Sorry, you were just  _teasing_  and I was sort of impatient-"

"Do I need to tie you down next time?" she interrupted, laughing. " _Impatient?_  You flipped us over and practically mauled me!"

She noticed him turn a deep shade of red just before he buried his face in her shoulder. "Sorry," he muttered bashfully against her skin. "I swear, you can call the shots next time."

"Oh I know," she grinned, using a hand under his jaw to lift his head. His eyes met hers and she met him in a slow, bruising kiss that made him moan. She pulled away after a moment and winked, "I really wasn't kidding about tying you down if I need to."

Ben just blinked at her for a moment, seeming more than a little surprised. "Have I ever told you that you're going to be the death of me?" he finally asked.

"No," she laughed, letting him roll off her and pull her into his arms for what was likely going to be a long night of cuddling. "But it's nice to hear. Maybe  _that's_  what we should try over Valentine's. That would be more fun than doing another tower run."

He snorted, and wrapped his arms around her, urging her to rest her head on his chest. "Oh. Yeah, I've been meaning to ask," he said cautiously, "Why isn't Luke promoting you to Second Dan?"

Rey inhaled slowly, and settled on the decision to answer him honestly. The situation still stung, but she'd had time to get used to the idea, and eventually she'd recognized that she'd been out of line that day. Not to mention, she'd just really great sex too, so whatever sour feelings she had about her situation were awash in the sea of  _wow_  and  _hnnng_.

"I'm being held back. For at least three more promotions. Actually he hasn't decided on a punishment, or  _lesson_  for Poe and I since the whole incident over the summer, so I might be waiting longer. I'm not sure."

"Well why were you being held back to begin with?" Ben paused, and added, "It's just a bit unusual to be held back for an extra year of training."

She cleared her throat and answered, "I got in a fight with Luke. Not like, a physical one. I...I  _might_  have started screaming at him outside the hospital. When you got your scar."

"Oh."

Rey felt a puff of breath as he tucked his chin to glance her way, and she continued, "It was my own fault, but he was trying to get me to calm down and I yelled a lot and accused him of a lot, and I...I  _may_ have crossed some lines. Quite a few of them, actually."

The room was silent for a few minutes, until Ben leaned down and kissed her forehead, murmuring, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she said softly. "I was worried about the man I loved and I'd...well, I'd kind of flown into a rage. I knew you were being hurt and I couldn't handle it. So I lashed out. It was my own fault and I don't regret it."

He seemed to accept that, and just held her closer. After a few minutes, he started running his fingers through her hair, softly whispering sweet words of love, and Rey fell asleep in his arms, wondering to herself how anything could possibly be more perfect.

* * *

As usual, Ben reluctantly left for a shift at the garage the next morning, after greeting Rey in bed with a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast. If she hadn't already been his, Rey would have firmly decided to keep him after that. Apparently the way to her heart involved great sex and delicious food.

After they ate, she slid on some pajama shorts and one of his t-shirts to follow him out into the apartment, noticing with surprise that Phasma and Rose were sitting on the couch, talking quietly. They went silent when they noticed Ben and Rey walk toward the door, and Phasma flashed Rey a smirk and a wink, saying, "Fun night?"

"The best," Rey shot back, calling her bluff, "Want the details?"

Ben squawked, and Phasma groaned, "Cupcake, I'm pretty sure I heard the  _details_  from upstairs."

"Liar," Rey drawled, rolling her eyes. She turned back to Ben, grinning mischievously He just sighed, and shook his head at her, a smile curling at the corners of his lips. Lifting up on her toes, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a deep kiss, ignoring Phasma's mock gagging in the background.

She let him go after a minute and nuzzled at his chest as he rumbled, "See you later, sweetheart. Want to grab dinner after Taekwondo?"

"Sounds perfect." Rey reached up to give him one more kiss before he left, and watched fondly as he walked out and gave her a little wave before the door closed.

Forgetting she wasn't alone, Rey sighed happily and closed her eyes, leaning back against the door with a massive smile on her face.

"Ugh," Phasma said, breaking the silence. "You're too... _cute_. Stop that, it's giving me hives."

Rey opened her eyes for the express purpose of rolling them at the woman. "Oh shut up," she grumbled. She muttered a few choice words at her friend, who seemed intent on teasing her, and flopped back into the chair by the couch Phasma and Rose sat on. "What're you doing here, anyway?"

Phasma and Rose's grins both dropped at that question. Rey sat up in her chair and considered them carefully before repeating her question. "Guys. What's up?"

"Well," Rose said slowly. "Okay, so, don't be mad. I've been looking into Snoke. I'm sorry I didn't involve you -  _either_  of you, but Phasma already scolded me, and I'm telling you  _now_ , so..."

Rey blinked, and considered the apologetic expression her friend wore. She nodded, and said carefully, "Okay, well, did you find anything?"

"She hasn't told me yet," Phasma said dryly. "Apparently she wanted to wait until we were both here."

Rose spoke up defensively, "It's just that I found something weird and I didn't want to freak anyone out. I don't really know how to explain it." She paused, and grabbed her laptop off the coffee table, typing in her password as she sighed, "I figured googling him would be a total crapshoot but I tried it anyway."

"Did you find anything?" Rey asked. She knew the man was apparently important, but considering everything he'd been keeping under wraps, she'd assumed only the things he wanted revealed would be posted. She'd done a similar search a couple of years ago and given up in frustration.

"Nothing more than a bunch of news articles," Rose explained. "Maybe a forum mention here or there, but the guy's got a clean record as far as I know. That's not important though, I did some digging on that forum and apparently the Taekwondo Federation publishes information about certified black belts? They have a whole database of them - they list when you got your belt, who you tested under - all of that."

Phasma frowned, and shrugged. "Yeah, it's basically public record. We even get little ID cards."

"Sure, but, have you ever looked up Snoke?" Rose asked, scooting over so Rey could sit next to her and look at the screen. She shook her head as Rose brought up the website and showed the the information the Taekwondo Federation had on him. "See anything weird?"

The page seemed relatively mundane. It listed his name ( _Alistair Snoke_ ) and title (Grand Master), and-

"Look at the name of the Master who promoted Snoke to Black Belt," Rose said quietly.

-and then Rey's eyes trailed over a name, and the oxygen in the room suddenly got sucked out.

"Phas," someone whispered. Rey realized  _she_  was the one talking hoarsely, in a voice straight out of a horror movie trailer, "Phas, what the fuck."

She heard the woman breath out a quiet, "That-  _no._  That...that can't be right. How is that possible?"

"I don't know," Rey said her sanity slowly returning, "but  _Skywalker_ isn't exactly a common last name, is it?" Her eyes traced over the name again and again as an odd foreboding feeling settled over her. Finally she cleared her throat and said in a voice barely above a whisper, "We need to talk to Luke.  _Now._ "

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Answers, and an old man's story.
> 
> WRITER NOTES:
> 
> Attack: Onfire is a flattering nerd. He's adorable and he had more involvement in this than he claims.
> 
> Onfire: All credit for this chapter goes entirely to Attack who is amazing. Like, seriously amazing. I will sing her praises to the ends of the earth because I honestly think she kicked ass with writing this. We were both pretty stumped with how to address the therapy scene and tie certain things in, but she did fairly well if I say so.
> 
> With regards to the online database. You can find information about Poom/Dan certifications, though you need to get the search terms correct, and look at the correct database. Basically, it's out there if you're determined to do the searching. You need some basic information a lot of the times like name and birth date, but since Snoke is rather infamous, it wasn't too much of a stretch to assume his birthday is down in public record online somewhere.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	46. Black Belt, Fifth Stripe, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have seen this on Tumblr, but Chapters 45 and 46 are a bit different. Like we did with a couple chapters in Act I, chapter 45 was written entirely by me (Attack), and Onfire handed this one. This is a heavy chapter, but it's arguably one of the most important ones for this act.
> 
> No updates to the playlist, but if you're interested, I was listening to [VSQ's cover of "Million Reasons"](https://open.spotify.com/track/6iqc5uXMFI87x4aoyk3RsV?si=Tl7_Kb8eTZ2PjzgUYMFFWQ) the entire time I was editing. The lyrics don't make a tone of sense for the chapter, but the tone of the song was lovely.

Despite Phasma's protests that she wasn't ready, Rey managed to convince her to stick around to watch their evening practice instead of mulishly brooding in a booth over at Maz's for the duration of class. It didn't take much effort, but that was partly because, even though game night had been a smashing success in helping the diner feel like a safe space again, Rey imagined Phasma still didn't really feel comfortable being alone there after everything that had happened.

Even Rey was struggling to stop the nightmares. Snoke plagued her dreams, along with gas, and the flames and smoke that had only been but a threat. It had been one  _hell_  of a threat.

In line with Ben's wishes, and her own, Rey had asked Maz to move her shifts around so that she wouldn't be on closing duty for a while. The older woman had only given Rey a long blank look and then nodded, seeming to understand. It had resulted in fewer shifts overall, but Rey was grateful nonetheless, and if anything, it meant Maz's diner wasn't quite as at-risk of being torched if Snoke decided to show up again to chat.

Rose had elected to stay back at their apartment, but only after thoroughly promising Phasma to hang out at her and Hux's place for the evening, thus ticking off yet another checkbox on Rey's mental checklist that she'd been using to keep track of her friends' odd behavior. She had her suspicions, but figured she could be patient enough to wait until Rose was willing to talk without prompting.

If Luke thought that there was anything strange about Phasma finally coming to check the Dojang out months after he extended his original offer, he didn't make special mention of it. When he saw the two of them walk in, Rey carrying her usual duffel bag, and Phasma without, he nodded to the taller of the two and gestured to the benches that were usually reserved for the audience.

Ben had looked over at them curiously, but also said nothing, and he and Poe resumed their hushed conversation in front of the punching bag. Those two had been acting more and more suspicious since their conversation at Maz's diner, when Luke originally offered to take on Phasma, but neither had been forthcoming with details.

Why were all of her friends being so weird?

After a few minutes of stretching, Ben called for everyone to line up and class proceeded as usual. He'd finally adjusted to the pace of things since his first day back a few months prior, and he'd resumed his old role as lead student, under Luke. He still occasionally moved in irregular jerking motions, and Rey knew him well enough to notice that he had to consciously tell himself to take a step back and breathe, but he no longer floundered or seemed lost, like he had during first night he'd come back.

The room was painfully empty, with only about fifteen Taekwondoians, not including Luke. They'd just recently lost another student, a recently promoted bodan who'd not taken Luke's surprise Valentine's day tower run well. That loss left them with an uneven number, which was manageable enough for paired activities, but in light of the information Rose had discovered about Snoke and the ongoing hemorrhage of students, it was like there was a gaping hole in the spaces between each practicing member - where there were once so many students, now there were few.

It felt like the Dojang was suffocating, and dying a slow death. Rey had a feeling she knew who was strangling it, and the thought terrified her.

When practice finished, Luke didn't wait at the head of the room or retreat into his office as he usually would. Instead, he immediately walked over to Phasma, bidding his various students a good evening and offering encouragement to the one or two of them who'd struggled that evening.

Rey followed him without prompt. The ruffle and shuffle of the lower belts as they moved out of her way told her that both Poe and Ben were following her, fanning out beside her on both sides. She smiled at a skittish-looking purple belt, and considered it a minor victory when they  _didn't_  look terrified out of their skin.

"-ot that I'm not happy to see you consider my offer," she heard Luke say as they reached them, "But something tells me you didn't just com e here to sit in on my class."

Phasma looked beyond Luke's form and caught Rey's eye before meeting his stare once more. "That obvious?"

She still hadn't stood up to talk to him. Rey didn't know much about etiquette, but she at least knew it was rude to stay sitting when someone of higher rank came over to speak with you. At the very least, they should have exchanged some sort of bow already.

"Not to most, but it was obvious to me," Luke said, not seeming bothered by the disrespect at all. Rey waited for him to continue, but realized he was done speaking, and was, instead, waiting for Phasma's explanation.

The blonde woman stared up at him, arms crossed and eyes wary. People were streaming by them, having changed relatively quickly and were already on their way out to enjoy the rest of their night. Practice ended late Friday evenings, under the logic that anyone who came to practice knew they were sacrificing typical outings for a couple hours' practice, and so would be fine with a late night's sleep or drive home.

It was Rey who broke the silence. She walked up and placed a hand on Luke's arm, grabbing his attention.

"Who's Anakin Skywalker?" she asked quietly.

A quiet hiss-like sound came from Ben, behind her.

A flurry of emotions crossed her master's face when he heard the name, finally settling on something that she could only call  _exhausted_. The sudden stiffen and subsequent sag of his shoulders told her Luke had been caught off guard by the question.

"So that's what this is about," he mumbled.

He turned and saw the minor audience the two of them gathered. His salt and pepper hair which had once held traces of blond now lay empty of color, and in that brief moment, Rey realized that she couldn't pinpoint at what point that had happened.

At some point the invincible Grandmaster Luke had gone and gotten old on her, and the realization was like a heavy lead weight in her lower intestine.

"How'd you hear that name?" he asked. The scratch in his voice was ancient and familiar, but this time the timbre was strained. "Where'd you hear it, kid?"

Rey explained what she'd been doing that day.

After Rose had shown her and Phasma what she'd found, Rey had skipped her classes for the day. They'd found the name after a few more hours of scouring online, after coming upon a record of one of Snoke's certificates. Most results for Skywalker were old articles about Luke's Dojang, or brief mentions of events he'd taken part in around town as part of charity or something similar. The only other mention of the name  _Skywalker_  had been in an old digitized obituary in the local library records that Rose had found after hours of scraping through parsed and poorly scanned files.

"You kids," Luke finally said, waving to the last of the lower belts who'd been dawdling on their way out. No one other than Ben, Poe and Rey stayed after anymore, anyway. "I keep forgetting how resourceful you are. I suppose even dead secrets don't stay buried for long with any of you around."

He looked at all four of them as he spoke, and Rey was glad to see she wasn't the only one having trouble staying still. Both Ben and Poe had been keeping respectfully quiet, though she could tell Poe had been itching to jump in and ask the dozen questions that were on the tip of his tongue.

"This isn't really the place to have this kind of talk," Luke said, having looked each of them in the eye. "Especially if that name's going to be thrown around. Did any of you have any plans tonight?"

Poe shifted in place and looked to the ground. "Finn's waiting for me to call, but he's been with his gran all evening. He usually goes to see her everytime I come out here."

"You should give him a call then," Luke said, not unkindly. "Let him know you're going to be late tonight, if you're planning to stick around." He looked at Phasma pointedly.

The blonde seemed to want to challenge him, but relented, mumbling something vague about Rose and Hux spending time together for the evening.

"And I know you two are practically attached at the hip," he said, turning to Ben, who'd gravitated to Rey's side at some point during her explanation without her notice. "So I'm guessing you're not letting this go either, huh?"

Ben hesitated but nodded, slipping his hand around Rey's in the process.

"Go get changed and head upstairs then," Luke ordered, "I'll close up down here."

The four of them exchanged nervous looks, but after a round of nods they made way to the locker rooms, Phasma choosing to join Rey instead of waiting outside.

She changed quickly, pulling her sweater over her head and tying her hair back in her usual buns. Phasma didn't say anything, choosing to look around the locker room with the calm and analytical stare of scientist observing a petri dish. She'd barely taken two steps into the room before finding a spot against a wall to lean against.

"Has it always been like this?" she said.

Rey looked over and saw Phasma staring straight ahead at a blank spot on the well. Her lips were pressed thin and the makings of a scowl already on her face.

Rey kept her tone purposefully vague as she answered, "Like what?"

"This." Phasma gestured to the locker room exit, where the main area was outside beyond the hallway. "There were barely any students tonight. It's like a ghost town here."

Rey didn't answer right away. She was too busy thinking back to the days when she'd thought she'd never seen more people crammed together in such a small space. Days that seemed far too long ago to have only been five years earlier.

"No. It used to be different. It's been getting worse. Master Luke used to have to divide classes by age and belt groups, and promotions used to be a lot bigger, but we've been losing a lot of students, so now everyone's in one group."

She remembered seeing parents and young children practicing in the Dojang in the hours before her training sessions. The Dojang had never been as wildly successful as  _The First Order_  had seemed to be, but Luke had always had a steady stream of students coming through his doors.

It had only been since that awful, fateful night when Ben had left that problems had truly started occurring. Family-oriented classes had eventually been mixed with the teenage and adult classes, but slowly, the number of students coming in and practicing had dwindled to almost nothing.

"He's pretty overworked, huh?" Phasma mused, and Rey hated the impartial tone in her voice. It wasn't Luke's fault his students had been giving up.

"He's doing his best," Rey said, maybe a little too defensively.

"Mmmm."

They didn't say anything more and once Rey was finished folding and packing her dobok, they left the room. Ben and Poe weren't anywhere to be seen, probably still in the men's locker room. The brief blast of freezing winter air when they stepped outside was invigorating, in the  _slap to the face_  kind of way, but they didn't stay out for long.

The street was deserted save for everyone's cars, silent in the solemn late February air. There were daunting shadows in Maz's diner across the street, taunting Rey with their existence, as if to remind her that she was the reason Maz was closing early lately.

Luke and Ben had agreed that it'd only be right for Rey to have a copy of the keys again in the aftermath of Snoke's visit to the diner, so after going in the building's secondary entrance, and up the dimly lit staircase, she unlocked the apartment door with a key that felt strangely heavy in her pocket.

Fortunately, the heating was back to normal in the building. Luke had apparently picked up some knowledge in between all the various times the thing had broken, and so the apartment was cozy and warm, like an immense hearth that had been going all day. Phasma followed in right after, posture unusually stiff in the half-light afforded by the streetlamps gleaming outside.

Rey kicked off her shoes, turned on a lamp, and made herself comfortable, sitting on the couch she'd spent so much time doing homework on a lifetime ago. She was inordinately pleased to note that Luke still had the old tube television from the first sleepover she'd ever hosted - the one that had devolved into her, Rose, and Poe arguing and liberally sprinkling Poe's name into everything like it was some cheap garnish.

So many memories, in a building that felt like it was dying.

"Skywalker…lives here?" Phasma asked, blinking around. Rey looked over at her curiously, noting the furrowed brow and set of her shoulders.

"It's not much," Ben's warm voice said from behind her in the doorway, prompting her turn around, "but it's home."

The three of them came inside the apartment. Poe grinned on seeing the old tv, no doubt remembering the first time he'd been there himself. Ben went to drop his stuff off in his room, offering to grab them some water on the way back. Poe didn't wait for any invitation and sat on the sofa, sinking in to the furniture with a sigh, and looking far too comfortable in someone else's home.

Rey snorted softly at the content expression on his face.

Phasma still hadn't moved from her position in front of the door. She was turning, evaluating, measuring. If Rey wasn't one hundred percent positive that there was literally nowhere safer, she would almost have said her friend was nervous to be in Luke's apartment, which simply didn't make any sense.

The floor seemed to shake right as Ben returned, and within a few second Luke was there as well, having come up the stairs without any of his usual grace and poise. However, unlike every other time Rey had ever left the Dojang with him, Luke was still wearing his dobok.

The dobok that he'd told them time and time again to never wear outside of a Taekwondo setting.

It was...odd.

"Sir?" Rey tentatively asked. She'd felt the tension ratchet up in the room as soon as everyone took notice of his attire.

Luke closed the door behind him, and then surveyed the room, taking each and every one of their expressions with a stony eyed stare. Phasma who'd been closest, flinched when he made eye-contact with her. She looked ready to be reprimanded. Or punished. Or something else. But it never came.

"Let's sit at the table," he said instead, gesturing to the tiny circular table which had served as Rey's – and she was sure Ben's – breakfast table for the entirety of her stay there. No one argued otherwise.

They had to grab the desk chair from Ben's room, and drag a bench that Luke had been using to hold a potted plant in his kitchen, but after a few minutes of silent work they all sat around, looking to Luke, makeshift knights looking to their Arthur - the man who would explain everything.

Luke leaned against the table, eyes drawn low to the fierce grip he held his hands in. It was a pose eerily similar to what she'd seen Ben adopt, when the things that she couldn't fight rose up to plague him in the middle of the night, or when a particular thought proved a bit too difficult to overcome on his own. It had happened less in less in recent months, but seeing Luke like this only made Rey wonder…

Did it ever get any easier, or did Skywalker men just get better at burying their darkness?

They all waited with bated breath, watching the flickers of light play across his face, the edge of shadows reaching down from above him. They'd turned on another couple of lamps, but the effect was illusory more than comfortable; the different lights playing off each other's shadows and creating a carnival of shapes along the walls at the backs.

"Anakin Skywalker," Luke said suddenly, shattering the silence. He closed his eyes and Rey wondered if it was the light playing a trick on her or if the contortion of rage on his face was real. He opened them and fixed Rey with a piercing stare. "You said you found his name online?"

"Uh yeah," Rey stuttered, before reminding herself that this was Luke, and that she had no reason to be afraid. "We were looking into Snoke and we found the last name on his black belt certificate. Why? Is there something wrong?"

Luke pursed his lips thoughtfully, relenting on his intense stare only to look up at the ceiling. "Not exactly. Just…wondering if this is providence or misfortune, to be hearing that name after so long."

Ben reached over under the table and grabbed Rey's hand again. She was surprised to note how warm his hand was and she realized that even with the almost suffocating warmth of the apartment, she was starting to shiver.

Everyone was quiet again, but she could practically feel the anticipation building up as questions swirled above them. It was only their mutually shared respect for the man in front of them that was holding them back from asking.

"Why were you guys looking into Snoke?" Ben asked, looking across at Phasma who met his stare defiantly. "You worked for him, Phas. You already know what he's like."

A derisive snort was her choice of reply.

"You can't blame her for wanting to know more about Snoke, Ben," Luke said, voice almost lofty with how vague he sounded. "He did directly threaten them after all, and he  _is_  more tied to this place than they know."

"But sir, this is-"

"Something that should certainly be shared. Especially, if the man's motivations are what I think they are."

A tense silence once again. Finally, because the man clearly had no appreciation for dramatic gravitas, Poe said, "So, who's Anakin?"

Luke's expression turned grave - one part wistful and two parts regretful, skittered across his face before he wiped it of any expression. Age lines seem to stand out against his skin, carving deeper than precision tools, and Rey was positive that for a very brief moment there, Luke was suddenly somewhere a long time ago and far far away.

He returned to them, but it was sudden and the trip back seemed to take years off his life as he licked his lips and tasted the words before speaking them.

"Anakin Skywalker…was my father," Luke confessed. It was like a weighty stone had been anchored to his neck, and he looked up at the ceiling, away from their stares. "He was also the man who first taught Alistair Snoke, and likely, he is the reason why Snoke is the way he is today."

"He  _taught_ him?" Ben whispered, suddenly pale.

"Indeed." Luke nodded, and rubbed his chin, looking pensive. "Well, if you could call it that. I never witnessed it personally, but knowing what I know of Old Ben's stories, I would say it was more likely that my father…indoctrinated him, I guess you could say."

Poe's eyebrows were raised skeptically. "You're talking like the guy was in charge of a cult or something. Uh, no offense, Master Luke."

Luke only looked at his dobok forlornly. "Master, huh?" He sighed. "You know, sometimes, I wonder if I made the right choice picking up Taekwondo, trying to follow in my father's footsteps." He shook his head. "God, I was so arrogant."

Rey wasn't having any of that. She reached across and grabbed Luke's hand in a vice like grip, so like the one he'd once held her in, that night he found out about Plutt.

There were times you let people go, and there were times you held on as hard and as painfully as you could.

Rey had never been very good at the former, but she was exceptional at the latter.

If anyone knew how to hold on, and not let go, it was Rey.

"Don't say that," she said, injecting steel and love into her voice even as she squeezed the man's fingers. He was looking at her like she'd just grown three extra heads, and she knew that this was probably against the rules somewhere but Rey had never been one for rules if it meant one of her friends getting hurt. "Please. Don't  _ever_  say that again."

Sky blue eyes stared at her hazel and she was met with the sudden and terrible realization that  _this_  was a man who'd gone through something terrible.

She had the sudden realization that the world had likely never been kind to the Skywalker men.

Ben's own hands came and joined hers.

"I agree," he said, his voice a soft baritone that she could kiss senseless. "Uncle Luke, I don't know what happened. I mean, I know that things turned out bad, but  _you?_   _This?_  I can't imagine Taekwondo without you, sir. I can't  _ever_  imagine the Dojang without you in it...this wouldn't be home without you, sir."

Luke looked between them, and true warmth shone through his expression, at last, though it was tempered by the tempest still inside.

"And I could never imagine a life without you, you cheeky brats."

He pulled away and continued speaking, no longer bitter, but certainly more invigorated than before. "Now where was I? Oh right. Anakin training Snoke." He looked around at them, seeming to consider how much to say. "I'm relatively confident I already know the answer to this, but do any of you know about the burning of  _The Death Star_ from thirty or so years ago?"

Poe shrugged. "I'm not from the area."

"You wouldn't have to be," Luke said ominously. "It never hit the news outlets due to the politics involved, but anyone who was anyone back then knew about it. We had people on both coasts interested in what happened, even if only tangentially."

"Does this have anything to do with why people recognized Han all the time?" Rey asked, only wincing when she felt Ben's clutch on her hand under the table become painful. "I got the impression that he was a bit...infamous."

Luke snorted. "It would indeed. That old fool didn't let things lie for years after  _it_  happened. It got to the point where I thought he was going to get himself killed, talking about things everyone wanted to keep hidden and forgotten."

"What changed then?" Rey asked, "Why'd he stop talking about it?"

Luke looked at Ben, and answered honestly, "He had  _you."_

The atmosphere at the table became noticeably awkward. Luke elaborated, either unbothered by the tense air or unable to recognize it, lost in memories as he was.

"Han Solo, biggest loudmouth, goofball, idiot I'd ever had the displeasure of fighting alongside and stitching back up, suddenly had someone who needed him more than he needed them, and that terrified the hell out of him.

"But I'm getting ahead of myself here," Luke said, leaning back in his chair and stroking his beard in idle thought. He looked like he needed a drink. Or twelve. "I suppose I should start at the beginning. How much do you know about the birth of Taekwondo as a whole?"

Rey looked at her friends and saw about as much bemusement in their expressions as hers.

"Not much?" she answered tentatively.

Fortunately, Luke didn't seem mind this failing in their education, judging by his dry chuckles. "Don't worry, I'm not upset. Better to know nothing than something incorrect."

"You're just a walking fortune cookie, aren't you?" Phasma muttered dryly.

"I used to collect the little papers inside them," Luke said, completely unashamed of this particular dalliance with dorkiness. "Anyways, the first thing you should know is that Taekwondo as we know it today, with all its rules and regulations, is less than a hundred years old."

Rey blinked, and her mouth dropped open. She felt like a child who'd just been taken to the backstage of a television show and discovered that all the magic animals she saw on the screen were really just the result of thirty-year-old man named Hubert who sat in front of a computer all day. It wasn't anything heartbreaking, but it was a little like being told that grass was green when this whole time she'd been operating under the assumption that it was purple.

"I'm sure," Luke said, "that if you look back far enough, you could arguably make a case for techniques and styles being used as far back as millennia ago, but the umbrella term for style itself? Taekwondo? It was created and established in the 1950's."

"What does this have to do with Anakin and Snoke?" Phasma demanded. Rey frowned at her friend.

"It'll help if you understand the mess that was the politics at the time. South Korea was still feeling the after-effects of the second World War at the time of Taekwondo's creation. They hadn't really nailed down the tenets at the time, but the philosophy was certainly more militaristic back then that what we have today." Luke sighed. "Honor and obey your superior. Finish what you begin. Do not let others shame you or your teacher."

Ben's grip on Rey's hand became absolutely painful, so much so that she just  _had_  to interrupt and turn to her boyfriend. Whatever complaint she could have made died in her throat at the pale and pinched expression on his face.

"Ben?" she prodded, cautiously. He was looking at Luke like he'd seen a ghost.

"You didn't give it away, son," Luke said, seeing the pure terror on his nephew's face, "Don't worry. I've just been around the block a little longer than you, and I knew what to look out for. I'm sorry I never took the time to fully warn you about him."

An uneasy chill descended upon the group, but Rey refused to acknowledge it. It almost felt a little like Snoke was in the room with them, which was patently ridiculous, but recognizing its presence would have been a defeat all of its own.

"He….he told me he'd learned from a great man," Ben said, voice thick and full of self-hatred, "That he was only passing on what he'd learned when he was a student."

"Often times, as students, we are afraid to question our teachers," Luke answered, and Rey knew he wasn't talking about just Ben. "We're afraid because we'll learn that they're just as human and fallible as the rest of us. Or, perhaps, even more."

"...Snoke didn't tolerate many questions," Ben stated, and Rey could see something raw come to the surface with that statement.

Phasma made an unintelligible noise of agreement. "He was... _scary_  when you talked back."

"And that's a failing on him," Luke said, voice gentle, "Not either of you."

The look Phasma shot him was considering and wary, but Rey could see some of the ice from before begin to melt. She nodded sharply and motioned for Luke to continue.

Luke crossed his arms and closed his eyes, deep in thought. When he spoke it was with a measured and controlled cadence, like a man who'd memorized the words from a history textbook.

"In 1965, my father returned from an overseas deployment in Vietnam. He was young, barely eighteen when he came back, and he was fresh off a tour where he got separated from his squad. He'd been roaming the jungle for two weeks, trying to find his way back to friendly territory. He was practically delirious when a normal scout troop found him and captured him.

"One thing you should understand," Luke said, sounding so pitying it almost hurt, "I don't know the exact details of what happened in those two weeks. It's possible he could have spent them relatively alone and simply lost. It's also possible he ended up staying awake every night, listening to sounds no man should have to hear - the sounds of death and war, and too tired to tell the difference between enemy and friend. I don't know.

"But what came back wasn't a whole man. He was young and relatively uninjured if a little malnourished and sickly, but he wasn't whole. Whether something came back with him or whether he left something behind, we'll never know. The only reason I know so much about it is because he eventually told one other person."

Luke fixed Rey with a stare so powerful she felt rooted to her seat.

"My grandfather," Rey breathed, realizing that her family had its own part to play.

Nodding, Luke continued. His voice had gained a rough quality, as if dredging up the memories hurt him. "Your grandfather had also been deployed, though his tour hadn't been nearly so eventful. Nevertheless, Anakin and he bonded over their shared experience. My father met the woman who he'd eventually marry, and he left the town that had grown too small for him. Any guess as to which town that was?"

No one said anything, even as Rey tried to rack her brains and come up with something.

It was Poe, though, who provided the answer. "It was Tatooine, wasn't it? That's how you knew where to show up that night."

"It was Miss Tico's timely intervention that informed me of where you were," Luke corrected. "But was I surprised that a monument to all that I abhorred was erected in that town?" He sighed, "No, I can't say I was.

"My father and Ben both took up Taekwondo a little after their return," Luke continued. "Master Yoda - my grandmaster - had recently arrived in the states, seeking a more peaceful life than what he'd left behind after the unification of the Korean martial arts. He was an adept, and certainly very talented, but he was a man tired of fighting and who only knew how. A fantastic teacher in all respects...but his greatest skill was in instructing people on how to hurt each other."

His words took on a smoky, droning tone, seeming to lose himself. How many times had he sat at this very table, wondering over old regrets and the lives of the dead?

Rey was quickly realizing that as liberating as her time in the Dojang was, her master's experience was perhaps something else entirely.

"Anakin and Padme married, eventually," Luke trudged on, somber gaze landing on his knuckles. "Old Ben - that was his- my name for him - was their best man. For a time, things were peaceful. My father and Ben would come to the building, every day, eager to help and learn and absorb their teachers knowledge, just like the obedient students they were."

Ben swallowed and even though he looked like he'd rather end the conversation right there, he asked, "What changed?"

"Nothing," Luke grimaced. "Well, I shouldn't say that. Nothing outwardly changed. My father and Ben Kenobi trained under Yoda for five years. Five years of friendship and bonds. The Dojang was small, but they didn't mind back then. It was a place of peace amongst the madness of the rest of the world.

"My father however, wasn't content. I'm not sure if it was those two weeks he'd spent alone in the jungle, or if he'd always been that way, but he was...impatient. Hard. He was a good man, I believe, maybe not a kind one...but he was good. He had no patience for those he saw as dangerous or foolish. My master used to tell me tales of the wonders of his talent, but he always skimmed the surface when it came to Anakin's personality. His...beliefs.

"Beliefs it seems, that Snoke has inherited," Luke whispered.

He had to stop then, to go get a glass of water from the kitchen. No one made to join him. None of them wanted to break the spell that had bound them in that moment, or maybe none of them wanted to interrupt what was clearly a breathing break for the aged old man telling a tale to them. It was a little like being in a dream, watching her friends and Ben meet each other's eyes and exchange conversation without actually speaking.

When Luke returned with water for all of them, he was noticeably more tired. He sank into his chair with an ungraceful thump, and winced as he rubbed neck.

"In 1970, my father left the Dojang, after a disagreement between him and Ben Kenobi turned violent."

If it was possible the hush in the apartment amplified at those words. Rey's hand hadn't left Ben's the entire time and now it was her grasping at him, squeezing his fingers as if to remind herself that this wasn't four years ago during the arguably worst time of her life.

"The entire time they worked together, toiled together, they were the same rank. Back then, the Kukkiwon Taekwondo Federation hadn't been established, and the Dojang wasn't under an official organization umbrella. Ranks were far more malleable and less rigid than today. They didn't have the same requirements. Master Yoda didn't much care for the system that was being set up in his native country - he thought it was too much confetti for what he thought was supposed to be a fairly simple setup. The teacher teaches. The student listens.

"Until it came time for them to discuss inheritance. You see, Master Yoda was already quite old at the time. He'd served in two wars, been disowned by his own family, and had battled discrimination of all kinds when he came to this country. He wanted to live in peace for a few years, and part of that entailed passing on the Dojang to either Anakin or Ben."

"Is- is that why he left?" Rey asked, feeling dirty for even speaking up anymore.

"I don't know," Luke shrugged helplessly. "My father...he'd always had strong opinions. He'd clashed with my mother on the topic of the war many times before. He was never forced to return to active duty, but he'd never been shy with his opinion either. According to Old Ben, my parents would occasionally go days without seeing each other whenever the topic became too much. Ben never told me much, but the night Master Yoda told them who he was planning on passing down the Dojang to…" Luke took in a rattling breath, and said, "that was the night my mother died."

There was a collective intake of breaths. She could see Ben frantically checking her position beside him, as if to make sure she was still there.

"Uncle Luke does that mean..." Ben trailed off, a trace of revulsion seeping through his normal composed tone.

"I don't know what it means," Luke said flatly. "Do I suspect? Yes, of course I do. But the only person who ever conclusively knew the whole of the events of that night was my father, and he died fifteen years later. As far as I know he never told a soul about it."

Luke took a deep breath, and said softly, "When Yoda told the two of them he was passing the Dojang on to Ben, my father  _lost_ it. I'm not sure what he did exactly, but I know for a fact that Old Ben was never able to properly lift his arm over his head for the rest of this life as a result.

"The police found me and my sister under a false floorboard, two days afterwards," Luke continued, his voice now a careful monotone. "We were three years old, covered in our own filth, and I was nearly dead from dehydration. Leia was passed out on top of me, hiding me from sight, and the only reason we were even found is because Old Ben escaped the hospital a day earlier than he should have because no one was listening to him."

"What?!" Poe shouted all of a sudden. Rey remembered that he was currently working at a clinic, and wondered if the idea of no one listening to a patient bothered him. "Why the hell not?"

"Because we were  _persona non grata_ around town," Luke scowled. "My mother came from a fairly prestigious family, but she'd always been something of a rebel according to Old Ben. There was quite a stir around here when she went off to college for an education instead of staying home, never mind the fact that she was usually one of the people at the protests they used to hold. It didn't help that…" he paused, and admitted, "rumor was, she was sleeping with Ben just to spite Anakin."

It broke her heart to hear the cold, clipped facts he was reciting. "Did you know there were newspaper articles back then, with a live running bet on whether the Dojang was going to close? Do you know how many windows my master had to replace even years after he took over? Master Yoda was  _never_  shy about his stance on the war, and you can bet your wallets on that, and people didn't  _like_  that. They didn't like his face, his clothes, they didn't like the weird words he spoke and they especially didn't like the way he would just smile at everyone and speak in his broken English!"

He was ranting. Building up steam.

"Do you know how many times I've wondered what would have happened, if someone had given even a single iota of more attention than they had? If someone had actually bothered to  _listen_  to Ben when he told them who'd attacked him? If someone had actually  _listened_  when he told them where to look for me and Leia?

"Anakin was in the wind after that. It took all of a month for Yoda and Ben to get someone from the police to come by and take a statement, and that was only because my mother's side of the family was doing their customary check-in to see if she'd come to her senses."

The bitterness hung about him like a shroud and Luke seemed to revel in it. "Wealthy friends of our grandparents adopted Leia. Apparently they'd disowned their own daughter and they'd wanted a second try to  _get it right_ ," he finger-quoted the phrase and couldn't have looked more cynical than if he'd tried, "and obviously separating a pair of twins was better than taking both of them."

It took Rey a second to realize she'd been holding her breath, anticipating the next bomb her master was going to drop.

But it was like whatever fueled Luke seemed to burn out of existence with that last sentence.

"I was shunted off to an uncle I'd never met, and I was too young to remember or understand much back then. I...I didn't see Ben Kenobi for another thirteen years after that."

There was something dodgy about Luke's words, something evasive in the way he wouldn't meet anyone's eyes, but Rey wasn't about to press on it. She had a feeling that, while undoubtedly interesting, it wasn't technically relevant to the case at hand.

"When I was a teenager, and just learning Taekwondo, things started happening around town." A frown marred Luke's expression. "Things. Hah. Listen to me, downplaying the mess things were back then. Might as well say it for what it is. Crimes. Shootings. Muggings….kidnappings."

"I remember that," Phasma jumped in. Speaking up for the first time in what felt like the better part of an hour. "It was in some local pamphlet they were handing out when I joined university. There used to be a lot of gang activity around here back then." She turned to the rest of the group. "Popular theory was that some bigshot crime family from New York was muscling in the area for something."

Luke snorted. "God, is  _that_ what the official story is nowadays?"

Phasma frowned, looked at him directly, and said in a challenging voice, "Are you telling me it's not?"

"Master Phasma, you know as well as I do that history is written before blood even dries." There was an almost feral glimmer in Luke's eyes. "I almost  _wish_  it would have been something like that. It would have made the whole thing feel a lot less pointless."

"This has to do with you and Han Solo burning down the  _The Death Star_ , right?"

A raised grey eyebrow was Luke's choice of answer. "I don't remember telling you that I was involved in that incident, Mr. Dameron."

"I can read between the lines, sir." Poe's response was dry and probably a little too cheeky for such an occasion, even if it did elicit a rueful grin out of the grizzled master in front of them.

Luke grunted in reply. "Things were a lot scarier back then. I don't really want to get into the details, they're a story for another time, but I first met Snoke when I traced the rumors I'd heard to a popular martial arts studio in Mandalore."

"Wait, why were  _you_  the one doing this?" Ben asked. His pursed lips seemed almost chapped with how dry they looked, but Rey could see the questions forming before they were ever verbalized. "Shouldn't this have been a job for the police? You were...what? Twenty? Twenty-one?"

"Nineteen." At the choked noise from Rey, Luke's expression turned amused. "I did say I was arrogant back then too, didn't I? I was well on my way to getting a black belt at the time. Ben Kenobi had all but adopted me, and there were several days I definitely didn't see any of my guardians, not that they cared much. Ben was the only one who cared, then."

Words shouted in anger echoed in her mind, and Rey longed for the ability to take them back.

_It sounds like you're trying to remind me that I'm the granddaughter of your dead teacher. As if that actually matters._

He took a breath, and glanced over at Rey. "You and I have a bit more in common than you might think, kid." She met his eyes, and realized this was taking a toll on Luke. A far heavier toll on him than she initially expected.

"Taekwondo was my life," Luke uttered, and he said it so reverently it felt almost unholy to be breathing the same air those words resided in. "I so desperately wanted to become a pilot, truly I did, but even back then, my life solely consisted of Taekwondo. Day in, day out, I was up at the crack of dawn, practicing, throwing myself into forms and techniques. I would miss school days to come by and help ol' Ben Kenobi with his daily chores, and I would do it all with a smile. What was I supposed to do, when all I had left of my family were memories I couldn't even trust and stories from an old man who couldn't bear to break my heart. It took me getting arrested for Ben to even hint at anything else."

" _What!?"_

Luke chuckled. "I keep surprising you stupid kids. I was arrogant, and I broke rules back then, too. The first time I passed by Mandalore I got arrested for trespassing and vandalism." He looked at Ben. "That's actually how I first met your parents, by the way."

"In a jail cell?" Rey's jaw dropped. She tried imagining Luke behind bars and the image was just anathema to her senses she had to shiver.

"Well, I met Han in the jail cell," Luke conceded. "Guy had gotten picked up being particularly belligerent with some beat cops when they pulled him over for driving with a pair bricks stuck in the windshield."

Rey took a moment to imagine it and couldn't stop the fond smile from appearing. "That… doesn't really surprise me."

"Believe me kid, very little could surprise me after I met that man." Luke shook his head and it looked like a little color returned as he began the rest of his explanation. "I actually met Leia when I used my one phone call. You see, my mother's family never wanted anything to do with me. I was the dirty disgrace who looked too much like my father to be worth anything to them."

He said it all with the staccato cadence of a man listing off a grocery list, and yet it was that alone that punctured Rey. She remembered spitting in his face, spewing vitriol so hateful she shivered just remembering.

"I barely even remembered having a sister," Luke mused. "It was only because Old Ben insisted on keeping tabs on her and her family that I even knew about her. Of course, him being the cryptic old kook he was, he only told me she was important to know about, but honestly I'd just thought she was an estranged niece or something. He did say that she was important though, and that she'd be the one I should call if I ever got in trouble."

"Why not call Old Be- sorry, I mean my grandfather?"

"Because the guy was pushing fifty by the time this all happened, and he had enough problems with his own family, let alone any more I wanted to dump on him. Not to mention, he definitely didn't have enough money to post bail for me."

Rey remembered. Her mother and father, who'd disappeared off the face of the earth and only resurfaced towards the end of her grandfather's life to dump a child in the already overworked and underfunded child care system.

"Even I'm not sure why I called her though," Luke considered. "But for some miraculous reason, she thought to come down and check out the strange boy who'd called her. They let her in to see us, because of course even then people knew about her family and it's not exactly like Leia was used to getting told  _No_. It would have been a perfect reunion too, if Han hadn't been there."

But even as he said it, Rey noticed the small smile.

"Do you know the first thing that man ever said to her was?" Luke asked Ben, who'd gone deathly still at the mention of his father. When he next spoke it was with a startlingly familiar impression that almost made Rey drop her glass. "'Hey princess! Any pity for the guy in handcuffs?'"

"No!" Rey gasped, and then giggled. It sounded too much like Han to be anything else.

"Yes," Luke nodded. "If I remember correctly, she slapped him once or twice for various things before they started dating."

They let him have his repose from the grave subject matter. Rey could tell everyone was starting to feel the effects of the interminably long night, eyes bleary, yawns threatening to escape each of them, but somehow she knew, instinctively, that everyone was trying to shoulder some of the decade's long burden Master Luke had seemingly fallen into bearing.

"I'd followed those rumors because I was scared," Luke said with a hush. "A kid I knew - Biggs - someone I used to pal around with back before his parents wised up and told him to avoid me. He'd been doing Karate at the time. I have no idea if he was any good, but he'd been pretty smarmy about it at school before we all graduated. I'd just spent the summer working for Old Ben, working up some change so I could finally afford my own place, when I heard from his family."

Luke sighed, and, something sunken and sad appeared. "He'd gone missing, the week before he was supposed to go to college."

There was something stuck in Rey's gullet, but she didn't dare swallow, didn't dare so much as  _move_  lest she interrupt this phantasmagoria of events that Luke was walking through within his mind. "They wanted help finding him. They said I was his closest friend. Said I'd been the only one Biggs actually talked about by name."

She could hear the swallow, just before he whispered.

"God, if I'd known then, I would have been a damn better friend. Maybe that would've saved his stupid ass.  _God..."_

He didn't say if he'd known  _what_ , but he didn't have to. Rey tried to imagine her friends going missing, and found she couldn't. It wasn't a matter of capability of thought - it was that she literally -  _physically_ , could not imagine a world without even one of her friends in her life, bothering her, texting her, bumping her in the quad as they each ran to their respective classes.

She tried to imagine Jess Pava - that girl who used to scare and even piss Rey off - missing, and found she couldn't.

Maybe she was selfish. Maybe she was even a little childish, incapable of even imagining a world where loss was a thing, but if that was the case she didn't want to be selfless - she didn't  _want_  to conceive of a world where those she loved were taken from her.

"Two days after his family came to find me and I told them off, Biggs' body was found washed downstream in a town fifty miles away." Luke scowled, "Cause of death was determined to be  _drowning."_

Rey closed her eyes, and suppressed the sob that had been building up. She felt for young Luke, for the terror and fear that had surely gripped him, and it hit her just then...that had almost been  _her._  She'd been  _so_  close to being in Luke's spot, not even a full year earlier.

Ben, Phasma, Poe, Finn, Hux, Luke, Rose...it hit her brutally and savagely and ripped the air from her lungs and she almost asked Luke to stop.

She didn't, barely, but she found herself immediately seeking out the large, comforting, and most importantly,  _safe_  presence of Ben. He moved his chair over beside hers and practically welded himself against her, a low subsonic crooning noise in his throat that she took to mean love and protection and everything she'd never have been able to receive if he'd been swallowed by the night at Snoke's pit.

"Anakin  _fucking_  Skywalker," Luke snarled. "He'd opened a studio in Mandalore, having returned some three or four years prior. He was also, as you may have guessed, involved in everything that had been happening. He'd trained with someone, I'm not sure who - I'm not sure where - but he'd trained with someone, and at some point  _someone_ thought he was good enough to become an officially recognized master by the Taekwondo Federation."

A cynical and lonely bark of laughter left him. "And of course, he wasn't done with this Dojang."

"No police report was ever filed, because my mother's family had hushed it all up, too ashamed to be associated with a dead daughter and her murderous husband. He was able to walk back into town, and open a business, practically on Old Ben's doorstep, and get away with it for years." Luke grimaced. "That was, until he and his crew started getting bolder."

Another faraway look graced his face before he washed it away for their sake. "The man had a backer, of course. Anakin had no money for any sort of startup, not since he'd been on the other side of the Pacific the some time. The rumors I heard weren't very clear, but they told me that someone, somewhere, had been putting a lot of money into a pet project of theirs. A pet project that involved a lot of fighters."

And so they came full circle. Rey watched with rapt attention as Luke dictated events that took place thirty years prior and yet, were achingly similar to what they'd discovered just last year.

"Fighters, all kinds really - people who'd trained in some form or were just plain thick headed - rumors of a way to make easy money arose, and...let me tell you kids, back then, a lot of people didn't really need a reason. Veterans who'd been scorned by the people they expected a thank you from, arrogant kids who thought because they were hot shit because they had a fancy belt around their waste, or even just people who were really angry. Really angry and who felt like they had nothing left."

Luke took a moment of rest. There were shakes racking his chest, but Rey could see it wasn't from grief or even self-deprecating laughter. He was just that tired.

"I found out later that Biggs' family hadn't been planning on paying his college tuition." Luke eyed the now empty glass in his hands, raising it to the light and inspecting it. "They'd wanted him to stick around and give up his dreams, learn to man the shop instead. He'd disagreed, obviously."

He slammed the glass on the table. "I tracked the rumors to the martial arts studio in Mandalore. I didn't have any proof whatsoever of anything. I was just angry enough to move fast and just young enough to think I knew better than everyone else around me." He looked at Ben and Phasma. "You two know the place. It's gone through some remodeling, but the address hasn't changed."

Ben winced, and Phasma nodded severely.

"I didn't think anything of it when I found the studio. I was steaming, angrier than I'd ever been, but I had the presence of mind to at least open the door before I thought to yell." Luke looked bitter and sullen. "And that's when I first met Alistair Snoke, the highest ranking student - their top ranking black belt. I'm not sure if it was fate or luck that had them reciting the tenets that day, but I curse it all the same. Those words..."

Luke crossed his arms, closed his eyes, shuddered, and leaned back in his chair.

"Courtesy," he whispered, and the word cut her to hear it, " _I will respect my teacher and my superiors without question. They are my better and know what is best._ "

Poe swore, a muted sound that was swallowed by the dark of the apartment around them.

"Integrity," Luke continued, " _The world is hard and cruel. I will fight evil and mold the world with my own hands._

"Perseverance.  _I will accept and fulfill any task asked by my teacher and by Taekwondo._

"Self-Control.  _I will never lose my self to my enemy, from without or within._

"And Indomitable Spirit," Luke finished sounding ten years older in the span five sentences. " _I will face my enemies with a heart empty of fear."_

It was...wrong. Perversions of their true meaning, twisted and molded to something inimical to a life filled with love, as Luke had surely deserved - as Ben surely deserved. Rey had no doubt that those aberrations were still in practice in  _The First Order -_ as if she needed a any more reason to hate that hopeless amorphous thing which had nearly swallowed Ben whole.

"And who was it standing at the head of the room? My father, the man whose picture Old Ben kept hanging in the Dojang in his office, as a reminder of better times. I'd walked by that room, seeing that frame at least twice a day for four years." Luke sighed. "I sometimes wonder how things would have ended, if he'd just...told me. Just told me the truth."

He didn't say who. Rey didn't think they were meant to know. There was a shuffling of chairs, loud and sudden, and before Rey could process it, she and Ben had risen from their seats and come over, as if one unit.

"Wha-"

She didn't let him finish.

Rey hadn't always been good with physical contact. The first hug she could remember ever receiving or giving had been just downstairs, in the Dojang, when Rose had practically tackled her for a congratulatory hug when they'd both been recently promoted yellow belts. Before that, anyone who'd dared approach her had never meant her well with their grip, as clinical or harsh it had been. She was a skittish and acerbic person at the best of times, slow to warm up to someone, but sticking to them like industrial strength adhesive once they made it past her defenses.

She was a creature of comfort, someone who thrived on physical affection, and time here, in this Dojang, was what had jumpstarted the process to her own recovery.

But there was no Dojang without Master Luke, and to hear his own desolate tone, after everything he'd told them, all the impersonally dictated details that surely wrenched at him deeper than he let on…

Well, she was done letting her loved ones suffer alone.

She and Ben descended on Luke like hawks, awkwardly reaching down and wrapping their family member in a hug. Because that's what Luke was.

_Family._

She kneeled down to grab more of him, while Ben moved to the other side and took his shoulders. Luke seemed smaller like this, not as out-of-reach as he once did, nor as immovable as he'd once played himself off as. The bottom of his beard scruffed the top of her forehead, and Rey tittered at the feeling. He had a grandpa's beard and she wondered if he realized it himself.

She could feel Ben's tree trunk sized arms above her, pulling Luke close. She knew these two men weren't physically expressive on their own, but there was a time and a place for everything and thankfully whatever aversion they had for public familial affection was gone.

If she heard the tiny, grateful voice that reached reverberated between the three of them saying, "Thank you", she gave no indication. She wouldn't have been able to pinpoint who it came from anyways.

They separated. Luke looked between them, eyes brighter than before, some of that youthful and ageless bearing returning.

"I'm not going to hold you kids up long," Luke rasped, eyes not tearing from Rey and Ben. "You've all got lives to get back to. Needless to say, I got into a fight when I saw my father. Landed a shiner right in Snoke's eye, if I remember correctly." A grim smile came to him. "Broke his nose too."

Phasma squawked, as if unsure of whether to cry or laugh.

"Sir, I know this probably not the time," Poe said, interjecting and completely ruining the moment, "but just know that you are now officially my personal hero for that."

Luke eyed him speculatively. "You need better heroes," he said bluntly.

Poe's blinding grin was all his only response.

" _The Death Star_ was where they were operating their system from," Luke said, undeterred by the sidetrack. "I won't go into the details - like I said, that's another story for another time - but it was Anakin's pride and joy...his magnum opus, for the entirety of his stay here when he came back. I don't know if Snoke was involved at the time, there were too many moving pieces to figure out. I  _do_ know however, that Anakin wasn't satisfied with some bar in Tatooine. He wanted more...he wanted what he felt was owed to him.

"He wanted this place," Luke whispered.

Luke looked around the apartment, looking at it as if a stranger lived there. Some strange and lonely hermit who'd sequestered himself from the world. Rey realized just how close to true that description was, and with a jolt, wondered just how lost Luke himself had been before Ben had come back into his life.

"And now, Snoke, Anakin Skywalker's prized student from back when madness met master, when darkness lived alongside the man, who's gone almost thirty years without interrupting my peace, is back. And he wants the same."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A forgotten enemy, a drive, and a compartment.
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> Attack: I don't have a lot to say here, because this was Onfire's chapter. We've been building up to this and what comes of it, for quite a while. The Skywalkers have a rather tragic story in-canon, and we'd be doing them no favors to change that.
> 
> Onfire: We had to split the chapters up to do the scene justice. This could easily have been another 17K+ chapter, but honestly? Thematically it wouldn't have fit. Our plans got thrown off track alas, but hopefully we should be back on track with the next chapter. There's so much we could have delved into, and part of me half wanted to break up all these events Luke's talking about in like a series of flashback chapters, but honestly that's not what we're going for with this. This is just an old man telling his story. Maybe in the future we'll do that? We'll see.
> 
> [Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	47. Black Belt, Sixth Stripe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this chapter is both one of the most important parts of Act III, and also its low point.
> 
> [Master Post of Art & Moodboards](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/179244877442/equilibrium-art-moodboards) 
[Playlist](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/175677411987/equilibrium-a-playlist-by-attackofthedarkcurses) 


The revelations from that night hung over Ben like an ill-tempered cloud, following him every time he stepped out of the apartment. His uncle had apologized afterwards for so casually bringing up the topic of Han the way he had, and he had especially begged forgiveness for dredging up the memories of Snoke's instruction. Ben hadn't blamed him, because as much as it pained him to admit it, Snoke had become everyone's problem - not just Ben's. The more they knew about the man, however obscure, the better prepared they'd be.

Ben didn't have the heart to tell his uncle that he hadn't needed any help in remembering Snoke's twisted version of the tenets. Ever since Rey and Phasma's close call at the diner, those words had been a persistent nightmare, hanging at the edge of his thoughts at all times like some ravenous hyena, waiting to chomp at his psyche.

He needed a break.

It had been a couple of weeks since the night that had ended on a somewhat dour note, learning the truth of his family's past. Work at the garage had been good, easier than before, though Ben wondered if he should attribute that to the fact that the Falcon wasn't in plain sight anymore whenever he was working. He still hadn't taken the car out on a proper drive yet, regardless of how ready it was.

He'd mostly been hitching a ride with Hux, who hadn't even thought to ask Ben why he still needed a ride considering he had a perfectly serviceable vehicle waiting for him at home. Ben didn't know if it was out of understanding or some innate  _best friend_ instinct, but he'd resolved to get the man something really good for his next birthday, which was coming up soon.

Ben was actually on the way to meeting Rey at her place for the weekend. Rose was still acting like a third-rate extra in an espionage movie, and had somehow managed to escape to Hux and Phasma's apartment two floors up for the weekend without Rey taking much note of it, which left Ben and Rey with the longest amount of uninterrupted together time in months.

Naturally, because they were both terrible at acting like a pair of functioning adults, they'd decided to spend the weekend inside watching movies together in pajamas, ordering takeout rather than cooking.

He hefted his bag over his shoulder and plowed through the early March snowstorm that had decided to grace Coruscant. Hip-high snow banks to his left were the only company he had as he powered through the storm. The walk from Luke's to Rey's normally took barely fifteen minutes, ten if Ben was feeling particularly impatient, but the storm didn't even have the good manners to move him with the wind.

It took Ben almost forty minutes to get to Rey's place, and that was only because Ben had to give up on his hat, which had blown off in some sadistic gust that nearly congealed his eyeballs in the same blow.

After digging the door out from beneath the small avalanche that buried it. Ben pressed the button to the intercom that he knew led to his girlfriend's apartment. He'd barely taken his fingers off the freezing button when he heard the electronic latch signal someone was beeping him inside.

Inside, Rey was already waiting in her doorway, arms crossed, brow pinched, and mouth twisted with worry.

Ben swallowed, noticing another very important thing.

She was wearing his shirt.

It hung down past her thigh - a forest green waffle knit henley...the sleeves had to be rolled up at least three times so as to fit her properly, the color clashing with her floral print cotton pajama pants, as if to draw attention that she wasn't the one it belonged to in the first place.

It was basically all but hers at this point, though. She'd stolen it at some point in the first few cold nights they'd had since they'd started dating, snagging it like some underground mole person and silently claiming it as hers. That didn't really matter much though, because despite the disparate time they'd each worn it, Ben couldn't stop his mind from jumping to one very primitive, but succinct word.

_Mine._

"-orried!" she said, and Ben realized he'd just missed her first few words. Usually, that was bad.

His head felt heavy and warm, but that was probably a result of being out in the snow, feeling the storm batten down at him.

"Sorry," he said eventually, tongue feeling thick and mouth hard to move. He moved from the entrance and joined her, reaching down and wrapping his arms around her just like he had that fateful night so many months ago. They'd done so much more than hug since then, but every touch still felt just as thrilling and exhilarating as before. "Storm held me up."

Rey didn't even bother to pull away from him. She smelled... _nice_. Like lavender and heat, and he knew she'd almost assuredly taken a shower within the hour.

Ben swallowed, and wondered if she'd mind going for another one at some point. With company.

"I was worried," Rey mumbled into his soaked and freezing coat. She pulled away and looked up at him, and Ben saw that little snowflakes had stuck to her face, her hair sticking to her cheeks in an imitation of sweaty sheen. She rose on her toes and Ben, already knowing what she was looking for, lowered himself into a kiss.

His hands were on her hips, and he couldn't help but be reminded that she felt tiny in his grip. Tiny and  _his,_  in a way no one else ever had been, and no one else ever would be. A sudden, wicked idea popped into his mind and he smiled against her lips as he lifted her as easily as if she were just another one of his bags.

Rey yelped, but then broke into laughter as she pulled away. "Ben!" she yelled, not even caring who else could hear her. "Put me down!"

"Not a chance." He cupped her ass for better maneuvering and pushed the half-open door of her apartment the rest of the way. He raised her against him, and walked fully inside, smirking against his former shirt even as Rey struggled in his grip.

"Ben Solo!" she warned, and Ben wondered if she knew what sort of effect of feeling of her against him as she said his name had on him. He could hear the smile in her voice. "Put me down  _now!"_

His response was to reach behind with his foot and kick the door closed. It smattered against the frame for a second but a secondary, more gentle kick secured its place in the frame and the lock signaled this with a perfunctory  _click._

She wriggled in his grasp, practically rubbing her chest against his face, rubbing  _his_  shirt against him, stirring things in Ben that he'd once thought long forgotten or at the very least gone. She didn't really struggle against him - she was smart enough to know how to escape this, but Ben enjoyed the challenge...the press of her form against him as he held her above the world.

He lowered her, careful so as to not unceremoniously drop her. She looked up at him, cheeks flushed, eyes wide, and her mouth open just wide enough for him to see her pink tongue reach out and lick her bottom lip.

_And she was still in his shirt._

Ben hadn't even been aware of how hard he was until he'd put her down. He was positive that he'd almost frozen his bits off in the trek over, but apparently he'd been wrong. It pressed against the fabric of his layered sweats, and he almost cursed his preparedness.

"Ben?" she whispered, and his mind immediately leapt to all the other ways he'd heard her say his name.

She was still looking up at him. Looking up with that lip bite that should have been illegal.

Before he even know what he was doing, he'd picked her up again. Rey didn't shriek this time, and instead, let him pick her up without any protest. He'd dropped his shoulder bag as soon as he'd come inside, but even if he'd still had it hung from his neck, he felt like he still could have soared over the world.

He didn't move far. Rey practically grabbed his face and brought him in for a burning-searing kiss that would have melted any ice off him just by sheer convection. He nibbled at her lip, delighting in the little moaning sound she made, and decided that he'd never heard a better sound.

"You're wearing my shirt," he mumbled against her, tasting every part of her face and neck she had exposed. She'd wrapped her legs around him at some point, but he certainly didn't mind. It only helped free his hands. He could feel her warmth against him, and he wondered at what point he'd discarded his jacket.

"My shirt," Rey gasped, arguing against his skin as he held her.

A deep rumbling escaped him involuntarily, and Ben delighted in the shiver that ran through Rey at the sound.

"Is it now?" he asked, voice low and promising.

He didn't wait for her response. With one hand supporting her, he reached up with his other hand and pulled her in for another breathtaking kiss. She moaned against his lips, fingers digging into his back through the fabric of his long-sleeve he'd worn underneath his coat and jacket. It was like temptation waiting at heaven's gates, he decided.

Instead of letting her keep grabbing at him, Ben leaned down over the couch, propping her so she wouldn't unceremoniously fall and hurt herself.

She whined, but let go of him, falling in her seat with a small  _thump_ , then looked up at him once more, cheeks flushed, and Ben thanked his luck to have met her because she was perfect, and she was his, and one just followed from the other.

Wriggling, she tried to sit up, to steal his breath away with another of her supernova kisses that would leave him with just the beat of his heart and the wish to do her right. Knowing his own self-control, Ben put his palm against her chest, and gently pushed her back, urging her to lay back against the couch instead of sitting up.

Another frustrated noise escaped her, and he couldn't help the chuckle that escaped him, knowing the desire in her was just as pressing in its own way.

He pulled off his shirt with frantic energy, humming with pleasure as he got shirtless under Rey's appreciative stare.

With urgency that belied his own thoughts, Ben knelt down, supporting himself against the edge of the sofa as he lowered himself. Rey's stare intensified, seeing the position he was assuming. Once he was kneeling at her feet, Ben helped tug her pajama pants down her legs, kissing down her skin as it was bared to him. When she was left in nothing but his shirt, he reached out, fingers rubbing, massaging her legs as he guided them apart slowly.

"You don't have to," Rey said, protesting softly even as her stare turned half-lidded and  _hungry_.

Ben didn't answer right away. Instead, he adjusted her positioning, making sure she was comfortable. He brought his lips close to her inner thigh, and blew a soft, warm breath against her skin there, feeling pleased with the gooseflesh and small shake Rey released as he did.

"Have to, Rey?" Ben whispered out loud, holding her gaze the entire time as he started, trailing kisses along her skin, navigating closer and closer to her center before switching to the other leg. "Why do you think I'm doing this because I  _have to?"_

He took a tentative, careful nip at her skin, taut and strong from years of Taekwondo, and he had to stop himself from moaning her name. Rey was like a drug to him. A drug he was forever addicted to, and would forever do anything for, so long as he could do for her what she did for him. He had to consciously stop himself from just grabbing her sometimes, because he liked to draw things out and tease her.

Rey's breath came in a weak little gasp. "Because," she said, and not much more. Her hands were running over the space he'd already passed by with his mouth, and he started navigating closer to her. "Because-"

"Because nothing," Ben chided her, smiling even as he looked up at her, met her stare as his mouth kissed and promised so much to her. "I'm doing this because I  _want_  to, sweetheart."

He'd been inches above her core when he said that, just before he descended on her.

Rey's breathy " _Oh"_  was all she could say, but by then, Ben was too far into heaven to look back.

He licked at her lips, tasting her, enjoying the small shakes of her body as he held her close and lifted her legs onto his shoulders. The sight and tastes were intense and maddening, and everything Ben wanted. He closed his eyes, and rubbed his face in her, enjoying the feel of her on his tongue and the weak gasps she made as he held her in place.

 _Mine_.

The thought came once more, and Ben smiled, letting himself have this little bit of possessiveness that he'd once denied himself for so long.

He caressed her inner walls, drowning in sensation, wanting to do this and so much more for the rest of their lives if he could manage. Her clit was a little nub, and he felt it as he tasted and devoured her, taking so much pleasure from  _giving_ her pleasure, feeling powerful for the best reason of all, for making the woman he loved  _feel_  and  _want_  and  _say his name just like that_.

" _Ben,"_  Rey said again, in a different tone than she'd used before. The sound was no less delicious. Ben grinned a wicked smirk, and returned to his ministrations.

His lips were on her, fondling, rubbing, and grazing every sensitive part of her in a pace that promised to leave him breathless, but he was too far beyond caring because he just wanted more. Selfish was a good word for him, because Ben liked hearing her like this, under his hold and wearing his shirt and  _god_  he was going to do this to her for as long as she'd let him.

She ground against him, and Ben closed his eyes, breathing and basking in the feel of her against his mouth, enjoying the little noises and quivering movements she made whenever the flat of his tongue came up and flicked against her clit, robbing her of control and filling her with weakness.

His heart pounding, Ben continued. Up and down, faster and faster, he achieved a pace that she seemed to love, if the sounds she was making were any indication.

Happy, but not ready to just let it be, Ben abandoned his hold on one leg and brought his fingers up against her. She was slick with arousal and his saliva, and his finger entered her easily. She made a vague lilting crooning noise of pleasure, and when he reached the right spot he  _curled_.

Rey bucked against him, and Ben was aware that she was moaning, loudly, and vociferously, and that just stirred the bonfire inside him even more. More. He wanted to hear that more.

Greedy and selfish, that was Ben Solo, and he didn't care.

A second finger joined the first, Ben still keeping up his tantalizing and addictive tasting of her. The second finger curled as well, and Rey's hand came down on his head. She was pressing him closer, urging him for more and well, who was he to deny her?

His fingers began to thrust, slow, and strong, and Ben continued moving his mouth against her. His vision seemed to have gone double, or maybe triple, but that was the potent and intoxicating feeling of having his tongue and mouth on Rey, and Ben lost himself in it.

"Ben," Rey whispered, "Please, I'm going to- Ben-"

He kept going, tackling his tasks with dauntless abandon. Her words spurred him on, rejuvenating his endless supply of energy, and he knew his worship could go for hours if she'd let him.

He didn't stop himself to catch his breath, choosing for some of the controlled breathing he'd learned over the years. His tongue lapped and tasted her, wanting more of her, wanting her to know  _just_ how much he wanted her. His fingers were curling at intermittent and powerful seconds, and her body shook, and it was building, he could tell, building, and it would be wonderful-

"Oh god- that- that feels so good," Rey panted in between gulps of air, "Ben-  _yes-_ " She bit her lip to stop a particularly loud noise. " _Ah-"_

Her voice melted, turning thick and pleased as her body shook and quivered, and he found himself front and center and the cause of it all.

Ben hummed, feeling the unconscious throbs of her muscles against his fingers, clenching and powerful and making him so hungry he nearly undressed right there. Her grip on his head became tight, almost painful while she pulled at his hair, but it was nothing compared to the amazing denouement of her pressing his face closer into her, as if it already wasn't the best moment of his day.

There was an art to appreciating Rey, and Ben planned on being a master in that art even if he had to spend every day practicing...which he would do without a voice of complaint and an eager and lascivious smile.

They stayed like that for what felt like an eternity as Ben made tentative prodding flicks with his tongue against her clit, inspiring a whole set of aftershocks as her breath stuttered. He knew she'd possibly get oversensitive, but the temptation to keep going - to get her there a second time was immense and he knew he could. He was going to wait another few moments and-

Something sharp and small dug into his back, and Ben yelped, pulling away from Rey. The action sparked the small thing to let go and jump off, and Ben turned to see Rey and Rose's chubby orange cat Beebee pace around fussily, looking at them like they'd somehow offended him.

Ben blinked, staring at the cat. Beebee stared right back, and then tilted his head.

Something a little like a lazy giggle came from Rey, and Ben turned to see her, smiling and snickering. "I think he likes you," Rey said, before descending into giggly fit.

Ben looked at Beebee, noting how the cat was holding eye contact with him, blinking slowly.

"He could have better timing," he muttered, turning back to Rey. She was laughing way too much for someone whose boyfriend just had his back clawed by some busybody cat. A quick check over his shoulder showed that thankfully Beebee hadn't drawn any blood, but it still stung.

"Oh, don't be like that," Rey laughed lightly, sitting up fully. There was a healthy flush over her skin, and it sent a thrill of excitement through him knowing that  _he_  was the one to do that to her. Her smile gained a wicked edge and before he could even ask what she was thinking, she slid off the sofa, and into his lap.

Reality seemed to take a moment to refocus as Ben's vision was filled with the light and life of Rey's face so close, with their new position so obviously insinuating. It took his breath away, and he leaned in and kissed her.

Her arms snaked around his neck, and her tongue came invitingly, and Ben let her in. She was ravenous, kissing him like it was all that would give her sustenance.

They broke away only because Ben was the first to lose his breath.

"You're still wearing pants," Rey pointed out, grinding her center against him, eliciting a groan from Ben. "Why are you still wearing pants?"

"Believe me sweetheart," Ben swore, "I'm wondering that myself. Trust me, as soon as I get them off-"

A sound much like a canon shot interrupted him. It was followed by three more in rapid succession, perforating the dream that they'd found themselves in. They stared at each other blankly for a moment until that too, was disturbed by another series of knocks.

They looked to the door. Someone was knocking on the door.

Who the  _fuck-_

"What the  _hell?_ Who-" Rey said, before her annoyance descended into something like a garbled frustration and words that had no meaning but plenty of implications.

Ben extricated himself from her tangled grasp, cursing and swearing at whoever interrupted them within his head. He waited for Rey to grab her pants and put them on again, feeling a proverbial vein pop out against his head with each increasingly louder slam against the door by this mysterious intruder.

When Rey was ready, Ben peeked through the peephole, seeing Phasma.

"Oh, fuck."

Not that he disliked Phasma, but if she was here, slamming as hard against the door as she'd been, the night had just gotten worse.

Ben opened the door, forgetting at the last moment that he was still shirtless. He didn't even bother to cover up, though. He already had a bad feeling about this.

Phasma saw his state of attire, but didn't comment on it and that, more than anything, worried him.

"Gear up, lovebirds," she said, looking uncharacteristically serious. "War meeting at Leia's house."

* * *

Considering what had just been interrupted, Rey was still less than pleased when they arrived at Leia's. Ben kept grumbling, switching between that and reaching over to wrap an arm around her, probably  _also_  considerably pissed that they'd effectively been cockblocked, and not for the first time.

But, when Phasma used the word  _emergency_  she tended to mean it. Especially when it was a Friday night. The fact that she hadn't told them exactly what was going on was spiking Rey's anxiety, and as her and Ben walked into Leia's, she realized Poe, Luke, Maz, and Hux's cars were all parked outside.

Ben seemed to notice that at the same time, and frowned, glancing over at her questioningly. She didn't know any more than he did unfortunately, so she just shrugged nervously and shivered in the chilly March air. The storm had quieted since their departure and now the only sound outside was the far off slush of cars starting and getting cleaned of the snow that had piled. It was private in an unnerving way, like they were hiding from something.

Leia's house never got less impressive. She'd been inside it quite a few times over the previous few years, most earlier when she had to meet with people in professional suits and briefcases, those who spoke in clipped tones and asked careful questions regarding her time with Plutt. Each time it was still surprisingly massive to her.

Once inside, she and Ben heard loud voices from the dining room - clearly they'd arrived late to the meeting.

"-not a coincidence!" she heard Poe snap, "Especially not with this all happening at once."

Luke's voice was a calming balm. "I'm sure you're right, but-"

He stopped when they walked in the room, still hand in hand, Phasma trailing behind them. The blonde woman was sending a watchful look behind them, at Threepio, who'd let them inside and closed the door.

"Oh, good," Luke said wearily, "You're all finally here. C'mon, sit down," he waved to a couple of chairs at the table next to him, and Rey noticed quickly that he seemed to have aged a decade in the day or so since she'd seen him. "We have a lot to talk about."

It was the oddest thing. Everyone was there, apparently waiting for them. Poe and Finn both looked like someone had been murdered, and were similarly hunched in chairs next to each other while Hux was pacing wildly around the room muttering something Rey couldn't make out. Rose seemed to be trying to calm him, and Phasma made her way over there to lean against the wall, watching him panic with a sympathetic expression.

Leia was at the head of the table, looking grimly at Maz, who was sitting to her right. Rey was a bit taken aback to see Maz looking so... _disheartened?_  Was that the word? It was as close as Rey could get to it, at least.

Everyone had quieted seeing them enter, and when Ben and Rey stepped a little more into the room, there was a twinging feel to the air, like a guitar string about to snap.

"What's going on?" Ben asked, his voice eerily calm.

Luke sighed, and gestured to the chairs again. "Sit down, kids. A lot of things just happened and-"

"We need to all compare notes," Leia interrupted softly. "I think that's the only way we'll get ahead of this. We all need to sit down and establish exactly what's happening and how we're going to handle it."

Rey's head was buzzing with questions, but she followed Ben when he tugged gently on her hand, and they sat down next to each other by Luke. "Okay," she said slowly, "What did we miss?"

Luke sighed again, and said, "Who wants to start?"

"I got fired," Poe blurted out, crossing his arms over his chest with an uncharacteristically angry huff. "A bunch of shit went missing from the clinic - just general supplies, but someone blamed me for it. I tried to appeal but there've been complaints about my  _bedside manner_ , so I got canned."

She watched as one of Ben's eyebrows quirked up. "Okay," he said carefully, seeming confused, "Well, that really sucks, Poe, but-"

"I got fired too," Hux spit. He was as red as his hair, looking apoplectic and panicked and like his entire life plan just got derailed in one day. "Fucking  _six_  years at the fucking company, and they fucking fired me with no warning."

"What?" Rey asked incredulously, turning in her chair to watch him pace. She'd never heard much about Hux's job situation but she'd always been under the impression that out of everyone there he was the one with the most stable job out of all of them. " _Why?"_

Hux made a guttural, pissed off  _ugh_  sort-of noise and said, "I was using my work email to chat with Phas during the day, and for some reason it's just  _now_  become an issue. Sure, I may have bitched about a couple of the bosses," he admitted, gesturing wildly with his hands, "But really, who  _doesn't?_  Some of those emails got sent directly  _to_  those bosses, I'm not sure how, but here I am!" he said frantically, "Fucking unemployed!"

"Shit," Ben breathed, "Okay, so this is-"

Much to Rey's surprise, Maz interrupted with a snort. There was a gnarled and crickety motion to her body language, like she was a wicked witch Rey had read about and feared when she was younger. "That's not all kid," the woman said, "The diner failed a health inspection. First failure since I opened 'er up, twenty-five years ago. Today, in the middle of a snowstorm when our local government shuts down if a door in city hall so much as sticks in its hinges." There was a leading and sarcastic quality to her voice, like she couldn't believe the audacity of the health inspector. "No reason for it, if ya ask me, but it's  _closed until further notice_."

Rey's jaw dropped, and after a moment she managed to say, "Holy shit." It slowly started to dawn on her that there was probably more than just those things going on, and she looked to Finn. "Finn? What about you?"

He shook his head, seeming like he was still in shock, and said quietly, "I just got accused of cheating in one of my classes. The one with Professor Mitaka. I'm under academic review, subject to academic probation." His voice grew thick with emotion and she watched, numb, as Poe grabbed his hand and squeezed it, "I could lose my scholarship...I could get  _kicked out._ I haven't told my gran, but if she finds out, I'm not sure how she'll take it."

Finn's gran had chipped in to cover the breadth of his tuition remaining after his scholarship. The costs were drastically reduced, but college wasn't cheap, and Rey knew that Finn's grandmother had penny pinched for years,since he was young, just so he'd have a chance at a better education than what she'd been afforded. Rey hadn't seen the woman in months, but she could still remember the pride in her voice when she came to see Finn at his birthday party.

Rey sucked in a quiet breath, realizing the severity of everything, and Ben's hand slid to her knee, tightening in an attempt to comfort her. She looked at him, confused and worried, and now wondering what spiked pit trap had been sprung for them.

"Mitaka? Is his first name Dopheld?" Ben asked, his voice laced with an edge Rey hadn't heard in a while. "Your professor, I mean. I'm guessing he just teaches part-time?"

Finn's eyes narrowed. "Yeah," he answered, nodding slowly, "He's big into business. Stock-market stuff, I think. How'd you know?"

Ben closed his eyes and exhaled, swearing under his breath. He ran a hand through his hair and groaned, "He's one of the investors for Snoke at the club. Kind of short, has a thick accent? Blind in one eye?"

"Yeah actually," Finn confirmed. He looked like he'd rather have done anything but. It sounded like a character from an Oscar Wilde novel to Rey, but clearly the man existed. "He uh...really doesn't like me."

"Trust me, Finn," Ben assured, "No one likes him either."

Threepio came then, carrying a pair of fruit platters and put them in the middle of the table, and then stood to the side, biting his lip nervously. No one reached for the sliced food. They all looked as sick as Rey felt.

"We think, based on the other things that are happening, Snoke's somehow behind, or at least involved in, all of this," Leia explained. "Obviously these are all terrible things, but I'm pretty sure I can still pull a few strings and get you boys jobs elsewhere, and I have a few contacts at the university who can help with Finn's situation. Unfortunately, there are a few more... _pressing_  matters at hand." She hesitated, and ground out the words, "I just found out I'm being investigated for tax fraud." Half the room reacted audibly, and she waved her hand, probably in an attempt to be casual, "They won't find anything. When it comes to finances I've been very careful to be  _by the books_ , but it  _does_  mean a good portion of my finances will be tied up for a while."

That...wasn't good. Rey didn't know Leia's financial situation or how she had all her  _friends_  and  _contacts_ but she wouldn't have been surprised to learn that some of it had been as a result of the woman's considerable wealth. With Leia hamstrung and effectively cut off from so much of her funds, Rey had no doubt that Leia's position had just drastically weakened.

"Fuck," Ben muttered, echoing her thoughts. "Okay, what else?"

Luke drew in a shaky breath, and Rey suddenly had a very bad feeling that the worst had been saved for last. She looked over at him with wide eyes, begging him not to confirm her fears, hoping he'd somehow be the invincible Grandmaster Luke Skywalker once more. She nearly started trembling when she saw the haunted look that crossed his face.

"The Taekwondo Federation is launching a formal investigation into the Dojang," he whispered, "For...quite a few things."

Ben noticeably tensed beside her, and hissed, "You've got to be fucking kidding me. This is all because he wants the building? This is  _insane."_

"It's not just that, son," Luke said wearily, "You  _know_  that's not his only motive. If that's all he cared about, he only would have targeted me, but look at the facts." He waved his hand around the room, "Everyone who was involved that night just had something very bad happen to them, all within the last few days. I suspect the only reason Maz got targeted is because the diner is your de facto hangout place and because both Rey and Phasma work there."

Rey's eyes swiveled over to Phasma, who was nodding along. Rey swore mentally. With Hux and Phasma out of a job, things were about to get very tight for them, very quickly. They might even have to put off the wedding, Rey wagered, if only to stay afloat.

"Miss Tico is the only one here who hasn't been directly affected." Luke said, pointing to Rose, who looked bewildered and possibly a little frightened of being the center of everyone's attention.

"Not that I'm not complaining," Hux said, not even bothering with being subtle as he grasped Rose's hand to calm her. "But why do we think that is?"

Luke sighed, and grimaced. "One thing you have to understand is that man isn't thinking right. Snoke doesn't operate like your typical vengeance-driven megalomaniac."

"Like hell he doesn't," Poe shouted, jumping to his feet. "He's ruining our lives!"

"Sit down, Mr. Dameron," Luke admonished. There was a tense moment where it looked like Poe was going to snap something cutting and rude back at their master before a quick head shake from Finn stopped him. He sat down, glowering resentfully at the wooden table in front of him, snatching an apple and practically clacking his teeth together as he took a vicious bite out of its skin.

Luke looked at each person individually, making sure they could see how serious he was. "Snoke learned most of his modus operandi from someone else. Someone who I learned the ways of long ago."

_Anakin._

"It's been almost a year since we showed up and burned that club," Luke said. "And these events only started happening now?"

"I thought that was because he was busy trying to get at us other ways?" Finn asked, "Like criminally and stuff."

"And Leia's been doing an admirable job of stopping that," Luke conceded to his sister, who seemed content to let him take the floor, "But there are other ways to hurt people beyond the physical and legal. Snoke was raised and trained under the mentality that the best way to do so is to make sure they know it's from him. It's both a show of power and a way of him letting us know that he can do more any time he wants."

Ben made a noise of understanding. "I get it, if this stuff had just been happening over the months we wouldn't have necessarily attributed it to him."

"I sure as hell would have," Phasma voiced, "No offense Benji, but I'm not sure I'll be able to rest until he's cold and six feet under."

Rey was going to say something in response to that, maybe something of the nature of how they wouldn't do something like that when she stopped, because she had no delusions about the kind of person she was and she knew that if it wouldn't complicate things so much...if she had the lack of compunction and the opportunity for it...she'd make that choice without looking back.

"Actually, that's a good point," Poe said, agreeing with Phasma and Rey and apparently so many other people at the table it should have sent warning bells to anyone with a firmer moral compass. "Why haven't we tried anything like that?"

Leia, Luke, and Maz looked at each other, before snorting.

"Because Snoke's not stupid, you uppity brat," Maz said, seeming to enjoy the chance to remind everyone of their ages relative to hers, "I'd bet my diner the old bastard's got a dead man's switch waiting in case something happens to him. You don't get to be in a position like his, making the friends he has, by not having something in your backpocket. Even if we had the ability to stop it, the man's got enough people around who wouldn't want to see his secrets come to light."

Luke nodded in agreement, "It's about building a narrative. He's got the means to do a lot to us, but the people - the ones who'd been going there, the ones who supported him and his ideas - they're probably all wondering if Snoke is actually someone worth throwing their lot in with."

Maz spat to the side. "Bunch a' worms."

"Which is where everything that's been happening comes into play," Luke finished at last. "Snoke doesn't  _care_  about Miss Tico. She's done nothing to him. She's basically a nonentity to the man, because she's not a martial artist and because she never involved herself in that night. But by waiting until now he's making an example of us to those who follow him - showing them what happens if you defy him." Luke scratched his beard and looked grim as he addressed the room at large, "Snoke's patient. He can afford to wait. And he's going to choke us bit by bit, and let us know every step of the way that it's him doing it."

Rey shivered, and the she could suddenly imagine it. The oily slick presence of a man who had power and was willing to use for all the wrong reasons and in all the wrong ways.

He glanced back at Rose, who'd turned pale was still being comforted by Hux, and said, "I don't think you'll be a target unless you manage to piss him off yourself." He paused, and grumbled, "And I'd suggest not doing that, because I'm not sure how the rest of us are going to get out of this mess."

"We'll do it by focusing on what we love," she heard Rose whisper, "Not by fighting him. Not by killing him. It worked for Rey, when you all went to get Ben that night. It'll work for us now, too."

Luke shot her a strange, considering, and calculative look for a moment before he sighed. "That's a nice idea, Ms. Tico, but-"

"You still haven't said why." Rey interrupted, realizing her voice was barely a whisper. "Why's the Taekwondo Federation launching an investigation?"

Luke turned to her, his expression full of pain and maybe a little sympathy, and it seemed like he was debating saying anything. Leia squeezed his arm, urging him on, and he said softly, "For a few reasons, kid." He took a deep breath and said, "Look, Rey, I want to make sure you know - none of it is your fault-"

Her blood went cold.

"-and even if the Dojang gets shut down and I get stripped of my title, and I could go back in time, I'd still make all the same choices."

"Why are they investigating you?" she breathed, suddenly terrified to hear the answer.

Luke's eyes closed. "Plutt, mostly."

Her heart started pounding against her ribcage. That was a name she hadn't heard spoken out loud in quite a while. It was a name that brought back to mind terrible memories of bruises and bottles and the compulsive need to lock doors behind her and hide and-

"Hey, sweetheart," Ben said softly, pressing a kiss against the side of her head, "Breathe."

She blinked, and took a deep breath as Luke continued, "I...I broke some rules.  _Laws_  actually," he admitted. "Do you remember those forms I have you fill out every few months? The insurance waivers?"

Rey nodded, wondering if it was the room spinning or just her life finally draining.

"Do you remember how I never asked you to do that until you were eighteen?" Luke asked. "How you didn't have to do it at all when you were still a minor?"

She felt like someone had just punched her in the chest, for all the air was driven from her lungs. She remembered being asked for her guardian's signature to cover insurance purposes. Once, and then never again, until she reached eighteen.

From the look on Luke's face, he saw that she realized what had gone wrong. "Even before I found out about Plutt, I was knowingly allowing a minor to practice in my Dojang without permission from their guardian."

"But sir," Rey paused and tried to think of a better way to ask the question and could only come up with, "why?"

"Because I thought I could do something for a kid who needed it," Luke answered, sounding wistful, "repaying the favor that Old Ben had done for me, even if you hadn't turned out to be his granddaughter." He shook his head, tearing his mind away from mistakes and memories. "But that's only  _one_  of the issues."

He sighed, and said, "I also threatened to kill the man, that day we went to pick up your things. I told him if he came out to talk to you, or if he ever touched you again, I'd strangle him to death."

Ben let out a quiet huff of disbelief, "Did you really?"

"Of course I did," Luke said, voice gravelly. He looked up at them with cold blue eyes, "I meant it, too. You saw those bruises, same as I did, son. You and I had very similar reactions that day. I was just better at controlling mine."

Rey swallowed hard, torn between feeling guilt, and wondering how she got lucky enough to have anyone care about her as fiercely as this family did. "Why is this stuff with Plutt just coming out?" she asked quietly.

"That's what I asked," Leia muttered, shaking her head. "As it turns out, Plutt has had a few visits in prison. Visits from  _Snoke_. It seems Snoke's been looking into your past, and I think it's safe to assume Plutt was all too happy to spill the beans. Lando also told me what happened with Plutt's truck, so it's possible we may be dealing with an accusation of property theft and destruction as well, though none of  _us_  were responsible for that."

"What happened with his truck?" Ben asked curiously.

Rey bit her lip and said, "Han. He...messed with it, and ended up setting it on fire."

After a moment Ben snorted, but didn't reply.

Luke winced, and the change in his expression caught Rey's attention, "Also...someone will probably interview you and Ben." He hesitated, and explained further, "About your relationship, I mean...specifically, about when it started. You'll need to start putting together anything that can prove it didn't start any earlier."

" _Why?"_  Ben frowned, "Why would that matter? How does that have anything to do with the Dojang being investigated?"

When Luke didn't respond, Leia pursed her lips, saying carefully, "It's been... _implied_...that your relationship started much earlier, well before you left to work for Snoke."

Rey groaned and let her head fall into her hands as Ben choked, "She was  _sixteen_  when I left, and someone's saying things started  _well before_  that? Is that a joke?" He seemed to struggle for words, and finally said, "They can't  _actually_ think-"

"Consider it from this perspective," Luke said, "From the time Rey started training with me, at fourteen, you were the highest ranking Black Belt, helping oversee lots of training and promotions. You were also picking her up from school almost every day, and bringing her home every night. You were spending a considerable amount of time together, often alone. There are witnesses to the fact that you were physically threatening with a boy she dated."

When Ben scoffed, Luke looked up at him with a tired expression, "Ben, obviously everyone in this room knows nothing was going on, and none of  _us_  are accusing anyone of anything, but the accusation's been raised. The fact that you two are romantically involved now gives the accusation a bit more gravity, apparently."

"That's ridiculous," Rey laughed, finally having hit the point of  _this couldn't get more absurd_ , "Seriously, there's no way-"

"It's a bit less ridiculous than it might seem."

She frowned and glared back at Hux, who'd decided to pitch in with an incredibly unwelcome opinion. "Fuck  _off_  Hux, you did  _not_  just suggest-"

"Calm down for a minute," Phasma groaned, "There's not point in fighting each other. Rey, just let him talk."

Rey huffed, but gestured for him to continue.

"I'm sorry, but Luke has a point," Hux admitted, "Again, we all know the truth, but there were times when I was nervous to leave you two alone." He gave Rey a sympathetic look, and she realized just how exhausted he seemed, "Remember the day before the funeral? Ben was drunk, and I specifically told you I was concerned? I'm not accusing either of you of anything, but I was  _trying_  to explain how things looked from the outside."

Ben fidgeted uncomfortably, and added, "Plus, there was that time in the laundry room.  _Shit_. Obviously nothing happened, but-"

"But it sure looked like something would," Hux pitched in.

Much to Rey's discomfort, Luke muttered, "Let's not forget the time you fell asleep reading and ended up sleeping in the same bed, when Rey was sixteen."

"Okay, I think that's enough," Rey snapped, getting fairly sick of all the implications, "We get it. Things didn't look great from the outside. Fine. But nobody can prove anything happened, because nothing was going on!"

"Proving it isn't necessarily the goal," Luke explained, "The problem is that the Federation now has a complaint on-file that I allowed a potentially inappropriate relationship between an adult Black Belt and an underage student to happen in my Dojang. That's problematic for two reasons. First, your ages. Second - Ben helped grade quite a few of your promotions, and even if your ages weren't a problem, being romantically involved with someone grading your promotions  _is._ "

"Why is that?" Rey asked cautiously.

Ben squeezed her knee again and said, "It's a conflict of interest. If they could prove that I graded your promotions at any point while we've been involved, those promotions would be called into question." He hesitated, and breathed, "If it was determined that any of your promotions were unfair in any way, we could both be stripped of our belts. I would possibly be banned from practicing, especially if they decided anything happened while you were underage."

That's when the panic set in.

Cold, terrifying panic swooped in and settled on her chest like a lead weight, and her breaths started coming in short gasps.

 _Stripped of their belts_.

Five years of her training, down the drain. Even longer in Ben's case.

And it wasn't just them -

Two jobs lost...careers potentially destroyed, or at least sidelined.

A business closed for an undetermined amount of time, putting three of them out of work.

A scholarship on the line, and a possible expulsion.

A tax fraud investigation.

A Dojang potentially closed, or at least under investigation.

And, considering Snoke's threat to Phasma, in the diner…three Black Belts, all at risk of being stripped of everything they'd worked for.

Suddenly the part of Rey that was hopeful and optimistic-

It just...broke. At least a little bit.

* * *

"-and with the trouble he's stirring up, I don't know what to-"

There was a knock on the door, interrupting the tangent Ben found himself wandering down. It had barely been a week since the sort-of  _war meeting_  they'd all had, and everyone was still floundering from the fallout. In a way, being able to talk to someone not involved had been both a surprising relief, and a crushing reminder of the reality of their situation.

Kaydel shot Ben a look. It wasn't so much telling him to shut up, as it was a silent reminder that technically their sessions were strictly off the books only.

"Come in," Kaydel announced. She'd uncrossed her legs from earlier and had been leaning in, listening raptly to Ben as he slowly mumbled and recounted thoughts and experiences that had been simmering up to the surface more and more - everything that had been on his mind since learning all the reasons the Dojang was being put under formal investigation.

Bushy brown hair poked out from behind the door. Kaydel's assistant's eyes didn't even waver in Ben's direction, instead meeting the professional's eyes with scary accuracy. "Your five o' clock is here," she said, somehow sounding apologetic without directing it at anyone in particular.

Ben sighed, getting the message.

This had been happening more recently. He'd been losing track of time and just emptying idle thoughts and worries into Kaydel's non-judgemental presence too often. Kaydel liked to keep a few minutes in between each session to set the room back to a diplomatic blandness before each meeting, and she  _was_  in demand.

"Why don't we end this here for today then?" Kaydel said, smiling warmly at Ben. "We'll pick up next week?"

Ben grimaced but forced a smile. Sometimes he and Kaydel just talked about things, and other times it somehow ended in him monologuing about one topic in particular, with percussive questioning on her part.

"Sure," he said, standing. He moved the pillow he'd been holding to the side, and considered it a point of pride that he didn't feel like he'd just let go of a cliff when he did.

He'd been getting better.

"Are you still working on your journal?" Kaydel asked, gathering the teakettle and cups they normally used from the coffee table in the center.

There was a few moments of silence as Ben pondered how to answer, before settling on that cruel but kind mother that was truth. "Not really."

"Mmmm," Kaydel said, nodding. "Could you bring it with you next time? We won't talk about it if you don't want, but maybe it'll help."

Help what - Ben, the session, his stupidly complicated feelings towards his father - she didn't say, but Ben nodded all the same. Her assistant opened the door and Ben passed her by, barely paying her any attention. In a way, he liked the front desk people more than he liked Kaydel. They didn't acknowledge him, judge him, see him. He liked it that way. He'd gotten enough recognition growing up that he'd learned to hate the attention of strangers.

He waited for the elevator for several ice ages, shivering in his long black raincoat. Kaydel's office was warm and hearth-like, a virtual nest for the damaged and sad and confused, but the rest of the floor felt like walking into a meat locker.

They'd been talking about Han, before the conversation devolved to Snoke, and the current predicament Ben and his friends were now in.

They'd been talking about Han a lot lately.

Ben didn't really recall saying much, mostly just stories from when he was younger. But there were only so many stories to go around, especially any from after he started middle school. Ben wouldn't have been surprised if he'd repeated a few things already, though Kaydel hadn't pointed that out or pressed on it if he had. She'd tried asking more in-depth questions, but Ben clammed up every time and asked to change the subject.

The elevator came, and Ben sank in the mindless tune that filled the empty space of the elevator. One time, a few months back when he'd just arrived for a session, he'd wondered what would happen if he just stayed in the elevator instead of getting off at the fourth floor, gone down the hall and turned left. If he just stopped these sessions. It wasn't like he was paying for them. He was reasonably sure Leia wasn't paying for them either...money left a trail and his mother was good about keeping things quiet whenever possible.

He had allowed himself that brief fantasy, letting the temptation stew in his mind like how a recovering alcoholic would keep a bottle of whiskey in the bottom drawer of his desk. It had tested him strongly, striking at his nerves with hammer blows of persuasion, but massaged his precarious soul with words like  _I'd be okay if I stopped_  and  _I don't need to do this anymore_.

And then he'd gotten off the elevator, went down the hall and turned left, and the voice in his ear that had sung those thoughts scurried back to the darkness still residing in his head.

Walking down that hall, turning left, and talking to Kaydel that day was one of his proudest moments, and he'd told no one about it. There was a certain dignity in its quiet achievement.

The doors slid open, and Ben walked out from the beige painted walls, ready to throw his hood over his head once he spotted his ride. Threepio was picking him up again today, and Ben was already reviewing the safe topics to discuss with the jittery man on-

Ben stopped.

Leia leaned against the Falcon, its bright hot rod red unmistakable even in the bleaking light of an incoming rain shower. She wore a dark grey cardigan that Ben could have mistaken for thread woven steel at a glance; unlike every other time he'd seen her recently, she was wearing jeans and flats. Her hair was done up in a braid, like always, but it was less dignified than he was used to, less austere and commanding and more like...how he imagined a mom  _would_  look.

She had an umbrella in one hand, already open and deflecting the light drizzle that had started. Her other hand was tucked under the arm, as if she was cold.

"You done staring?" Leia called out, smiling. "Because it's damn freezing out here tonight and I've gotten too old to wait on Solo men in the rain."

Something catapulted his heart from his chest to somewhere right above his adam's apple and suddenly it was like feeling the pulse-throb-twang of a string orchestra going on in his ears.

She hadn't said she was coming. It was supposed to be Threepio.

Ben bit his tongue to stop the first words that tried to come out of his mouth. He didn't know what they were, exactly, but he knew they wouldn't have been anywhere near as polite as what she'd said.

Suddenly all he could think of was how he hadn't been left alone in a room with her for months. There'd been that talk at the garage, months ago, but Chewie and Lando had been there, serving as the emotional buffer Ben absolutely didn't know he needed until just now.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. He threw his hoodie up, and walked out into the rain. The pitter patter of the raindrops would have been soothing if it wasn't so harmonious with the beat of his heart.

"Picking my son up from the doctor's," Leia voiced. "I heard it's this thing family members do for each other now and then."

"That's not what I mean," Ben growled, feeling frustration or panic (it was probably panic) seep through. He gestured to the Falcon behind her, taking care not to get too close, lest he touch the car. If he touched it became real and Ben didn't want this kind of reality right now, not with his emotions riding a whirlpool and the memories so close to the surface. "What are  _you_  doing here?"

Throughout the entire time the arrangement with Kaydel, Leia had never once hinted at or talked about it with Ben. After the first visit, when Threepio stood in for her, Ben had simply assumed she didn't want to interfere or ask him, as skewed as that logic may have been. It would have been perfectly in line with Leia, the upright woman who trusted and inspired others to be their best selves.

But perhaps not in line with Leia, the mother.

"I came to get you Ben," Leia spoke softly, her voice tired and...full of something else he couldn't identify. "You've been avoiding me."

Ben didn't bother denying it. It was true.

He hadn't meant to, not on purpose, but talking about Han the past few months brought to mind thoughts about Leia, and as complicated as his feelings towards his father had been, he knew that his feelings towards his mother should have been less awkward and more….turbulent. Because despite whatever his father's wishes were when Ben had been younger, Leia would never have gone along with the idea of sending him to Luke's if she didn't at least partly agree with them.

And that brought to mind a whole bag of issues Ben wasn't sure he wanted to confront any time soon. He  _liked_  not hating his mother.

Was it really so wrong to want to stay like that?

"How'd you get the keys?" Ben said instead, focusing on the car, because the woman in front of him was so much frailer than he remembered. When was it that people got old, and why was it that, when they did, their mistakes seemed to hurt others so much more?

Leia pulled out a keychain. A plastic toy falcon, its colors faded and one wing ground to almost nothing hung from her hand as the gleaming metal of a car key jingled in the recently lit streetlight.

"Your father left me a copy," Leia said matter-of-factly. "Believe it or not, it was his wedding gift to me."

A sound escaped him then, and Ben realized too late that it was a chuckle. Since when did mentioning his father make him laugh instead of seethe?

Why did it bother Ben so much not to know when the switch had happened?

"That sounds like him," Ben said. He mumbled something out loud, but didn't catch it himself. He was too struck by the contrasting light of the streetlamps and the metallic sheen and shine of his dad's car, the rivulets and estuaries of water as it hit the frame and traveled down the outside of the car.

He was reminded of that old story his dad had told him. Of raindrops like asteroids hitting the car as he and Chewie and Uncle Luke ran away from some bad guy or something, and how the Falcon was the fastest car in the world, and that one day,  _by god_ , one day he was going to take his boy -  _Ben_  - out on a road trip across the country and kidnap Leia along if he had to and-

A hand settled on Ben's arm, startling him. He looked from the absolutely tiny hand on his bicep to the woman who'd once seemed taller than a mountain to the young him.

She didn't seem that way anymore.

"Come on," she urged. "I'm freezing my nips off, and I don't have a bottle of rum on me to make it worth it."

Ben jolted, stopped, and then laughed in spite of himself. Despite how composed she normally was, he remembered the rapier wit she normally held and how she'd been perfectly fine mortifying him and his uncle that time in Maz's diner while Rey was content to play along. The laugh seemed to do the trick, and, with a readying breath, Ben nodded, and made for the passenger's side door.

Leia stopped him, shaking her head gently. "Nu-uh," she said, "It's your car. You drive."

Ben looked back at the building he'd just left, wondering if it'd be too much to ask to have a six o' clock appointment with Kaydel. And a seven o' clock. And an eight o' clock.

"You drove here," he pointed out.

"Exactly. Now my son gets to drive me back."

"I don't think this is how this is supposed to go, mom," Ben opined. "You're supposed to be more nurturing and I don't know... _kinder?"_

Leia snorted. "We both know you haven't taken her out since you've fixed her up, Ben. Han used to say the car gets finicky if it doesn't get its wheels spinning at least once a week."

Ben was silent at the mention of his father.

Another sigh, this one a little frustrated, or maybe just tired. "Just drive for me son….please."

Her skin looked sallow in the evening, thin and precious. Despite the dissonance both in tone and setting, Ben was reminded of how she'd looked during Han's wake, standing amidst friends and family and looking as lonely as the broken in a sports crowd.

He came around and got in on the driver's side. He'd only been in the car a handful of times since the night of his rescue, and it wasn't like those times had been anything more than fifteen minutes each. Sitting in that seat, feeling the groove of the wheel in his hands, the smell of oil and even the occasional bling of lucky dice hanging from the rearview mirror...it was a little like living in Han's skin, seeing what the man himself would have seen, and the thought should not have sounded as appealing to him as it did.

The car came to life under his touch, and Ben hated the small part of him that leapt in excitement at the sound. Things had been simpler when remembering his father just ended with him mauling a punching bag until his knuckles split and the burn in his fists hurt more than the ache in his chest.

Now everything was complicated.

He side-eyed his mother, noting the approving noises she made as she ran her hands over the dashboard. He sighed. He was wrong, it had always been complicated. He'd just been exceptionally good at running away.

Switching between gears came as easily as breathing to him. He tugged on the stick  _just right_  and the clutch barely fought him as he shifted into and brought the park into first. He looked at Leia and said, "You got anywhere you need to be, or should I just drop you off at your place?"

"Planning on getting rid of me so soon?"

"Funny, I remember thinking the same thing when I was twelve."

He hadn't meant for it to come out like that. It'd been a knee-jerk response, a thoughtless curse meant only for the privacy of his own head to better cope with her close presence. He'd had dozens of them over the years, private notions and gut reactions that spawned from behind the shadows in his mind and never got beyond the front door of his conscious. He'd never even gotten  _close_  to vocalizing them to her.

His mother had always been untouchable that way.

Leia huffed and leaned back in her seat, something bitter stealing her expression. "I suppose I deserved that."

Too close. This was treading way too close to waters best left undisturbed.

The drive passed in relative silence. Ben had gotten used to being the quiet one when driving to and from his appointments, he'd just fallen into that role, luxuriating in the relative peace before and after the emotionally harrowing hour that was his time at Kaydel's clinic. Both Hux and Threepio, the two main people who drove him, had learned that a quiet Ben wasn't necessarily a nervous one, and had allowed him that simple indulgence.

That stillness between them wasn't anything of the sort. It was strained, prowling, like a predator lying in wait for the earliest opportunity to strike. It reminded Ben of being stuck in a room with Snoke as he paced in front of Ben, calm and assured that between the two of them, Ben needed him more than vice versa.

Ben passed suburbia, having memorized the route even though he'd never driven it himself. It was stupid how easy the Falcon felt in his grasp, how the vibrations of the engine seemed to soothe and strengthen him just from sitting in the driver's seat. It was stupid how Ben ached to slam his foot on the pedal, to see just how fast and far this old bird could fly. It was stupid that he was even thinking about it in the first place, considering who the original owner of this hunk of junk had been and what he'd done.

(What he and Ben had done together, in the dying summer afternoons when the days stretched forever and the laughter outlasted each other.)

 _...fuck_.

"You'll be alright," Leia said, and Ben realized he'd said the last word out loud. "You've been getting better."

He swallowed and found his throat painfully dry. "Thanks," he said, and then let it at that.

Leia fiddled with the radio for a bit, switching it on and then to an old station that Ben's oh-so-helpful mind told him had been one of Han's favorites. Soft rock and lyrics danced out from the speakers built in to the dash...a story of a father's relationship with his son, and it was a wonder the pounding thrum of his heart didn't overshadow everything else.

Ben kept his focus solely on the road, trying to avoid hearing the lyrics. An uncanny valley seemed to stretch beyond the threshold of the neighborhood he found himself navigating through. The sky was falling, and night was almost there in full, only a trickle of meager light poking out from the horizon, where clouds rustled in anticipation like shoppers on Black Friday.

Half an hour passed with no more interruptions, and slowly Ben started to relax, rolling the tension that had been building in his shoulders off with intermittent stretches. He couldn't fathom at Leia's reasons for doing this, but maybe his own curt responses and attitude had curtailed whatever her plan had been. Her home was closer than Uncle Luke's, so all he had to do was put up with it for a few more-

"Do you remember what you wanted to be when you were younger?" Leia asked, effectively dashing his hopes with a dozen innocent words strung together like chains in a set of manacles.

With a tempered breath, Ben inhaled and on his exhale, answered as calmly and obliquely as he could, "No."

"A race car driver," Leia supplied. Ben took a quick glance and confirmed the musing smile in her voice. "You used to go around in red and blue pajamas with cars all over them, carrying your favorite Hot Wheels toy that you'd painted yourself everywhere. You were so young then." A moment of appreciative silence passed. "You still are."

He gave her a full-of-significance, but ultimately meaningless, grunt of acknowledgement. Then, because he knew she couldn't speak caveman, he said, "I think I remember that."

"You must have been five years old then."

"Probably."

"Used to drive me crazy with the things you got up to." Leia shook her head. "You honestly believed the Falcon would go faster if you painted flames on its side. When I found you putting butter on the hubcaps because you thought  _that's_  what would paint it yellow, god I was  _so_  furious with your father."

Ben's breath hitched. He couldn't remember it, not very clearly, but there was a shadow of some sensation on the other side of the pool of memories. A flicker of light on a dark night, brilliant, incandescent, and yet impossible to make out its shape or origin.

"Han let me mess with the Falcon?" Ben rasped, focusing so hard on the asphalt and consistent interruptions of the traffic lanes that he could almost see himself running alongside or ahead.

"Let you?" Leia snorted. "He was encouraging you the whole time. That old fool was practically on the floor from laughing so hard when I found you two in the garage. He kept crowing about how he was just glad you were interested in the thing."

They were coming up to the turn they'd take for Leia's place. He put on his blinkers, and started slowing the car down and slicing through the stream of water on the right side of the road.

"I've got to pick my car up," he heard his mother say, "Keep going. It's at your place."

Ben swore. In his head this time at least, but dammit if he wasn't tempted to let her know just what he thought of this whole charade. He cut the blinkers and stepped on the gas, flashing by the turn that was supposed to save him from this woman, and drove further into the patient night. The rain had picked up by that point, and it was all he could do not to open the window and scream out at the void around them.

Minutes passed, and the first adventurously placed signs of Coruscant started coming into view. Recognizing the danger in how fast he was going, Ben eased up on the gas, his breath and voice returning in sync as the car slowed.

"Why would he do that?" Ben asked, his head filled with imaginary laughter of a grizzled man in a beaten leather jacket. It came easily to him, in contrast to how it had usually skittered out of reach "He loved the Falcon more than life itself. He-" Ben stopped as the icy cold words of  _he loved it more than his own kid_ slinked out from their cave and carved into his psyche with icicles and pinpricks of frostbite.

"Why'd he let me mess around like that?" Ben finished lamely. As tangled in knots as his relationship with Leia was, he didn't think even she deserved to hear those words. "I could have really damaged something."

He shuddered to think of the things a free-roaming child could to to the Falcon. Chocolate in the air conditioning, butter smeared liberally along the outside of the car, scratches in the finish everywhere as they tried to draw shapes with a screwdriver or something. Paint and vomit in the inside because those somehow always got involved when a five year old was around.

It would have been a nightmare to take care of all that, and despite how he was now, he knew he'd been a terrible little hellion when he'd been younger.

"He cared for the Falcon, yes," Leia hummed. "Maybe even loved it once. This old thing was his home and his ride for so much of his life I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd asked to have some of his ashes stored in the driver's seat or something equally insane."

Ben shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It did sound like something his fath-  _Han_...would have asked for.

"Oh don't worry," Leia said from the nadir of her memory sinkhole, seeing his reaction, "I convinced him not to. But Ben, as much as this car meant to him, for all that he burned himself changing a piece here and there or broke his fingers that one time the car hood fell on his hand...it's just a car."

"It's  _not_  just a car," he snarled, defensive even if he didn't know why.

"It is," Leia blockaded, "It's metal and plastic and oil in the shape and size of something able to move really fast. Your father practically lived in the Falcon when I met him, it was his home, his everything."

The world was beginning to turn less solid in his eyes, and Ben blinked the watering in them away.

"You should have seen him, Ben," Leia continued, "He was in his element in this car. He was a bit of showboat and too cocky to know when to back down, but..." a low loving smile appeared on the woman's face and suddenly she was thirty years younger and sitting alongside another man named Solo, "When it was time to run, and  _believe_  me son, that man could run faster than any sprinter - when it was time for us to scram, it was Han who saved our lives every single time. There wasn't a plan too stupid for Han Solo and I'm still not sure if that was a good thing or not. Him and Chewie, they'd always come in, talking loud, talking shit, and somehow that worked every single time."

She shook her head. "But the Falcon's just a car. She'd been Han's home, his refuge and Ben, I thought part of him would always stay with her, no matter how much he loved me or Luke or Chewie. I thought that and I accepted it, because I loved that man and I treasured every piece of him I had. I thought that...until the day we had you."

At some point they'd gotten close to their destination. Ben debated taking a scenic route around, enraptured and mesmerized by this picture of a man so wholly in line with his own yet without any of the acrid and sour tint of betrayal that so laced everything nowadays. He was jealous of his mother, in a way, because she'd never been let down by Han.

What a terrible son that probably made him.

"When we got home from the hospital," Leia said, "I passed out. I'd just had the hardest seventeen hours of my life, and I could barely tell up from down, let alone take care of you. Maybe that makes me a bad mother, I don't know. All I know is that when I woke, you were still asleep in your dad's arms, after he'd put everything away and laid down to catch a breath."

Ben remembered seeing the picture, still hanging on the walls the last time he'd ever stepped foot in that house. He also remembered spotting it the day he'd walked out to the Falcon, waiting for his dad to come and throw him away like yesterday's trash. Two separate goodbyes, both permanent in their own way, and yet his eye had always been drawn to that stupid picture of his dad smiling down at Ben as they finally got home from the hospital.

"Luke had helped of course," Leia huffed, "but Han was possessive. He never put you down. Just grabbed you and held you and looked at you like you were everything he didn't know he'd been missing." A tired chuckle escaped her. "And that's the day he gave himself to you. You displaced the Falcon just like that, filled that man's heart with so much love he didn't know what to do with it."

Ben pulled over the side of the road, a wet feeling clinging to his chest and throat and voice and everything else that made  _Ben Solo_  in that moment. The lights in the Dojang were off, as were Maz's, both shuttered up, but Ben didn't think much of it. He could only focus on the rough calluses in his palms and the brimming furious energy in his limbs which had sparked not long ago.

"...you're lying," he uttered, still in control.

Neither made a move to get out. Three people sans one sitting in a car that all three loved in their own way. One because it had been home, two because it had been more than a car to them, and three because of the memories associated with the bird without wings.

"You asked me why he let you work on the car," Leia said, voice brittle and stone at the same time, "He loved you Ben. He wouldn't have given a damn if you'd decided to scrape your name into the fender. He was just happy he and you had something to do together."

" _You're lying!"_  he yelled. Begged. "He didn't love me, mom. He-" he choked as he put to words thoughts that had stuck with him, "-he didn't even want me once I started causing trouble. Do you remember what he said when he picked me up from the police precinct because I bit that cop?"

Worn hazel eyes stared out at him, small points of light in the dead street. "He said-"

"He said, ' _Get rid of him'_!" Frustration built and grew and before he knew it, Ben had slammed his hand against the dash of the car. The car groaned and shook in response and Ben hated the piece of him that felt immediately guilty for the action. "I remember! I remember because I was coming downstairs to apologize! I remember hearing you two arguing about what to do and I remember hearing him start yelling!"

"Ben-"

"He kept shouting it," Ben muttered resentfully. "I couldn't not hear it.  _Get rid of him. Get rid of him._   _Let's just get rid of our son, Leia._ "

Ben shut his eyes, escaping from the presence of his mother, older and sorrier than he'd ever seen her, but even in his head his demons came back. The words changed and warped into things that a young teenage Ben had fallen asleep to for so long.

_Get rid of our son, Leia._

_He's dangerous._

_He hurts people._

_I don't know how to relate._

"Ben-"

 _No_. No, it was too late to try and justify the reason for the demons-

"Stop!" he interrupted coldly, turning to her, voice strangled on the emotions that kept threatening to spill out, "Just,  _stop!"_

"You need-"

"No!" he shouted, slamming a closed fist against the dash again. The bloom of pain in his hand was dull and still not enough to distract him. "Stop  _lying_ to me!"

Her voice was thick and heady. "Ben, he  _loved_  you."

"He didn't," Ben insisted.

He couldn't have. You didn't just throw away the things you loved.

"Ben, please listen-"

His fist hit the dash again, shaking something loose, but Ben couldn't have cared less. He wanted to break it, his dash or his hand, he didn't care anymore. He just wanted something else, something to overshadow this moment and the memories and the bubbling black tar that clung to every recollection of his father.  _Stupid car, stupid car with stupid memories-_

"You think he loved me?" Ben croaked. He felt like he'd been screaming even if everything that had been said couldn't come close to the heartbreak of a boy without a family. "Prove it. Please, explain to me how you can love someone and say the words  _Let's just get rid of-"_

"It was  _my_  idea!" she finally shouted.

Ben froze, and let out a shaky breath as he looked over at the woman. The woman who both seemed to be a stranger, and one of the few links he had left to the man...the man who-

"It was my idea," Leia said softly, wiping at her eye. She reached over to the spot on the dash he'd kept hitting, and his eyes followed her while he was busy trying to process what she'd said.

It was a little compartment. The one he'd no clue about.

Leia opened the latch, prying it open with her nails, and with a little effort her dainty fingers reached in took out a small handful of what seemed to be scraps. She ruffled through them, sliding dried paper across each other, holding it up to the streetlight coming in from the passenger side window.

Ben let her, suddenly feeling like this was a stranger pretending to be his mother. Or maybe, at last, his mother proving she was a stranger to him.

After a moment, she breathed, "Oh,  _Han_." Ben listened to her sniffle, and she looked over at him with eyes full of sorrow and regret. "Here's your proof," she whispered, setting the compartment's contents in his lap.

He almost didn't dare to look.

With shaky hands, Ben picked up the small pile of…

They were photos.

Pictures of him.

Some of him and Han. Some just of him.

His breath came in gulps, and a low pitched whining noise, much like the Falcon on a bad engine day seemed to start up in his hearing. His vision clouded with tears that threatened to fall, for what he didn't know. Maybe at the loss of so much. Maybe at the fact that despite everything Ben felt like he'd unfairly lost his father at the age twelve and the rest had just been the ruminations of the forlorn. Maybe because the old hurt was suddenly fresh with the presence of a new perpetrator.

Maybe. Maybe maybe maybe.

The tears  _did_  fall when Leia spoke up again. Quietly and apologetically, she said, "Ben, what you heard...that wasn't the whole story.  _I_  wanted to send you away. I'm not going to try to defend that decision - I lost that right the day Luke took you in - but I can at least say your father never wanted that."

"What," Ben started, and floundered, unable to remember how to speak, let alone ask the question. "I...what... _mom._ "

"You were so angry then," Leia recounted, and she sounded lost. "You kept getting into fights. I didn't even know what they were about half the time, and I just, I didn't know how to  _help_." Leia shivered in the balmy and warm cabin of the Falcon. "And your father, he just, he'd take you home and take care of you, even if he chewed you out the whole time."

Ben remembered that. Those times had featured as bittersweet in the thoughts of a young Ben, who'd wondered if maybe if he'd failed or if there was something wrong with him for not seeing how his dad wouldn't want such a fucked up kid in his house and in his car.

"He called me an idiot once," Ben provided, remembering one particularly bad time that had ended with him on the ground and three kids with split lips and broken noses between them.

"Of course he did," Leia said, "I used to call you my two idiots when you weren't listening. I don't know. Call it cowardice. Maybe envy. You were so much like your father, like your grandfather, I was scared I wouldn't know what to do if things got to a point where hope and pretty words wouldn't be enough to fix it."

"Mom," Ben repeated, the word sounding synonymous with something much worse now. "I just...please." Leia flinched at the pleading in his last word. "Then that night…?" He let the phrase dangle, afraid of the answer.

"The day I suggested it, he started repeating my words and yelling. He kept throwing them back at me, shouting them and...and..."

Ben let out a breath, smoothing his thumb over the corner of a photo of him at his first promotion. He was standing in the Dojang next to Luke in a fresh new yellow belt. Neither parent was anywhere in sight. Neither of them had been there.

"-he was so angry with me for so long, but he didn't want you to blame me. When you got mad at him for it, he took the blame. He thought maybe, one day, you two could fix things, because he had  _hope._ " Leia sighed, shaking her head, "And I...I let him take the blame. I shouldn't have, but I did, and I've regretted it every day."

He didn't want to stare at the photo anymore. He remembered the thoughts that had been going through his mind that day-

_Get rid of him. He's dangerous._

-and he saw a familiar scrawl on the back of the photo.

It was the same writing that had been on every birthday card he'd glanced at and tossed out, just like he'd been tossed-

_Slow down, kid. You're growing up too fast. I don't want to miss it. Love you, son._

A sob broke through the failing attempt at a non-caring facade Ben had built up, and Leia whispered, "Once you existed, Ben, this was always just a car to him. You could have scratched it to hell. Lit it on fire, even. All he would have cared about was you anyway. He loved you, and he wasn't the reason we sent you away."

Her hand landed on his knee reassuringly, but all that did was snap him out of his thoughts, and the only feelings Ben had coalesced to something akin to bitter and aimless rage.

He threw the car door open and jumped out, slamming it behind him. The rain battered down at him, and he didn't feel it, just as he wished to not feel anything. Without stopping to think, he stormed into the Dojang, punching in the code with mindless abandon and almost shattering the door on his way in.

The feeling thrummed through his veins, scorching everything along the way and he opened his hand, letting the scraps of a past he didn't want reminders of flutter to the ground as he took long strides, not pausing before driving his fist straight into a bag that hung from the ceiling.

His howl was full of rage and resentment, for who, he wasn't even sure anymore.

Fists pummeled a bag -  _no_ -

Left, right, jab,  _hook._

-they pummeled  _him_.  _Han._

Jab, jab, reverse,  _jab._

The man who-

Who was that, crying?

The man-

_Get rid of him._

Cross, reverse, overhand,  _hook_.

_He's dangerous._

Was that his blood on the bag?

_Let's just get rid of our son, Leia!_

Left, left, right-

"Ben?"

He spun, focus broken, and saw Luke holding the scraps he'd let fall. The photos. The ones his father couldn't possibly have had, unless-

Unless-

"You gave him pictures?" Ben choked, finally realizing the crying had been  _him_.

Understanding crossed his uncle's face, and the man nodded, "Yeah, kid. Videos, too. Every promotion. Every birthday. Every tournament, every first day of school. He didn't want to miss anything. It broke his heart, not being there for any of it."

Luke took a few steps toward him, slowly, as if he was approaching a wounded animal.

In a way, he was.

"Oh, Ben," Luke sighed, taking his hand and lifting it to inspect his knuckles. Blood was flowing, but compared to everything Ben was feeling, it was almost a relief. "Son, what happened?"

He flinched at the word.

 _Son_.

"Did you know?" Ben asked. He could see the taillight of Leia's car outside the Dojang, dimming as it drove away. Good.

"Know what?"

"This," Ben gestured to the things in Luke's hands. "Did you know  _why_  they got rid of me?"

Luke was quiet, sympathy clear. "She told me earlier today. She said it was time you knew. I- I'm sorry Ben. I swear, if I'd known I would have told you. I'd had suspicions, especially in light of Han's behavior after you started living here, but...he always insisted it'd been his decision."

Ben nodded, and, feeling the creeping mountain of exhaustion threaten to claim him, he sat down. His clothes were wet from the rain, and he'd probably tracked dirt and scrap from the street inside, scuffing the wood of the Dojang, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. He couldn't find it in himself to care about much at the moment anymore, other than the last meaningful set of words-

_Look, Ben, last time we had a conversation that lasted this long, your mother and I were shipping you off to come live here with Luke, and you got so pissed off that you cut us out of your life. I let that happen...I know I fucked up. But I'd really like to think that you wouldn't jump at the first chance to repeat my mistakes...So kid, you gonna be like your dear old Dad and repeat my mistakes?_

-exchanged with his dad, in this very building, not even twenty feet away from where he stood.

_His dad._

At some point he'd started thinking of Han as his dad again. A thin, crinkled smile came to Ben then, liking the way the title fit. There was pain there, but pain wasn't bad...not in this case.

Luke approached, carefully, but without any fear. It was like he was trying not to startle Ben.

"I had a father," Ben whispered, "I had a  _dad_."

A dad who took the brunt of everything, because he couldn't bear the thought of Ben hating his mother. A man who accepted the hate and hoped that one day it could once again turn to love, not knowing that Ben had maybe never stopped loving him in the first place.

"He was a good man," Luke agreed, sitting down next to him. They were facing the mirror. Luke was in his casual wear, a loose button-up and and jeans and the stupid-looking slippers he insisted on wearing in lieu of footwear whenever he was at home. Ben just looked like a mess. His hair was plastered to his face from sweat, tears, or rain, and his scar hurt and twitched uncomfortably, like a hot electric wire under his skin.

"Is Leia...is mom..."

Luke shook his head. "I told her she should go on home. There'll be time to talk to her later, but I figured you could use some space from her after all of that."

"...thank you."

Ben had no idea how to feel about her. He knew he couldn't hate her, even after everything. He'd barely been able to hold on to the simmering, poisonous hatred for his dad because he'd somehow convinced himself that the man had discarded him like trash.

He was just so...tired. Tired of hating.

"I'm sorry for the mess," Ben said, ducking his head and so he could wipe his nose. It wasn't shame exactly, but it was something skittish, nervous about being so open in front of his uncle. "I'll start cleaning up and-"

"Son, it's just a building." Luke's arm came around Ben's shoulder and Ben was transported back to a time when his dad had done the same. When his father used to muss Ben's hair and call him  _son,_ and it didn't scrape the surface of his spirit to hear the word. "We'll take care of it later. Family's more important than any building to me."

Goddammit. Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit.

Ben closed his eyes and begged apologies to someone, anyone, out there, for all the stupid shit he'd said to Luke, and Leia, and  _Han_ , and everyone who'd ever held him tight.

Something jumped up to his throat and Ben had to voice the horrible, horrible thought.

"I had a father," Ben repeated, "and I threw him away. He kept trying to talk to me and reaching out and he was sad and he just wanted to apologize and- and it's too late to tell him-"

His words were interrupted by a tight, full hug from the man who'd raised him.

"Han loved you, kid," the man breathed. "No matter what you said. No matter what you did or how you hurt each other. He loved you, no matter what. That's what it means to be a father, and Han was one of the best ones I knew. He loved you more than anything else in the world."

Ben squeezed his eyes shut, tightening his arms around his Master - his uncle - his lifeline - and admitted the words he'd been holding back for most of his life.

"I- I loved him too, Uncle Luke."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A new title, Vienna, and a new responsibility.
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> Attack: Oh, holy shit, okay. Onfire handled most of the last scene, but we swapped off at one point because _wow_ we both kept crying. If you made it through this chapter without crying, please tell me your secrets. Part of me wants to apologize for this, but the thing is...Han needed to be addressed. Whether or not Ben's willing to admit it, Han's memory has been haunting him, and we would have done Han's character a disservice to pretend Ben would just be okay with everything involving his father. Ben's not okay, but he will be.
> 
> Onfire: This chapter has been built and led to for a while. It's an emotional climax in a sense, and possibly the most important one in Act 3.
> 
> Was Han perfect? No. He could have fought Leia's decision harder. He could have tried to visit Ben much earlier. He could have told Luke the truth instead of accepted the brunt of the hate.
> 
> Was Leia perfect? Also no. She's been built up as someone to be relied upon, but we've always wanted to give this faint aura of untouchability to her as well. That's a great person to have your back in a dangerous situation, but not so good for the messy kind of childhood that Ben had.
> 
> Ben was an angry _angry_ kid, for so many reasons, and that's scary for a lot of parents, especially when other kids get hurt as a result. Both Han and Leia handled it poorly, and I don't necessarily know if Ben is entirely blameless either. People just start figuring out what's right and what's wrong at that age, and Ben's constant fights weren't helping things. I think we give him some leniency though, in this recounting of the Solo family problems.
> 
> Overall, is anyone perfect? No, not really. Family isn't meant to be perfect. We're meant to help each other, even with each other.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	48. Black Belt, Seventh Stripe, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see [THIS MASTER POST](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/179640552492/beautiful-calligraphy-courtesy-of) for all fan art and playlists.

The plain black-rimmed clock - the same one that had hung on the wall when he'd stood there and learned to tie a white belt - ticked over and over again, setting a rhythmic feeling, like an unadjustable metronome, and Ben sunk further into himself; his eyes shut, his breath calm.

_Courtesy. Integrity. Perseverance. Self-Control. Indomitable Spirit._

Not the twisted versions he'd learned from Snoke. No, now Ben brought to mind his first lessons. Every ending seemed to call back to a beginning, and every ending was some sort of new beginning anyway, so-

Maybe there were no endings. Not really.

Maybe he'd never really left to begin with. Not fully. His body had gone that day he'd stormed out - the last day he'd seen his dad (his  _dad_ ), but maybe his heart had stayed.

In truth, though, it felt like he'd never really left to begin with.

Of course, he  _had_ , and he'd been gone for years, and deep down, Ben knew that, just as he knew he couldn't just wipe the slate clean. The reality was, some of his instincts during a spar were still a little questionable, and sometimes he still woke up to the sound of drums, his heart beating in time to the memory of them. Something in him still winced at just how natural it felt to drive the Falcon. Something in him still crumbled when the mark on his back twinged.

His choices and his time with Snoke had scarred him, more than physically.

But scars fade, and his were fading.

Bit by bit, breath by breath, kiss by kiss, but fading all the same.

"You're ready, Ben."

His eyes opened slowly, as if coming-to from a waking dream, and they met the watery, cerulean blue eyes of his Master. Of his uncle. Of the man he never should have walked away from.

"You're ready," he repeated, voice a little more gruff, a little more emotional, "I'd like to start your testing tonight. If you agree, you'll participate in this weekend's promotion as a Fourth Dan Candidate."

He'd known this was coming, of course. He hadn't known when, or exactly, why, but this had been what he'd been working toward for a very long time.

It would be a great honor, to be the first Black Belt promoted to Master under the widely respected Grand Master Luke Skywalker.

To Ben, the bigger honor was being his uncle's student, titles or no.

"Are you sure?" he breathed.

The strike Snoke would have delivered for insolence never came, and neither did the chiding.

Luke tilted his head, his eyes softening, as he asked quietly, just barely loud enough to be heard over the clock's ticking second hand, "Do you think you're ready?"

_Courtesy. Integrity. Perseverance. Self-Control. Indomitable Spirit._

The uttered word slipped through his lips; instinct, gut, and heart speaking where his mind couldn't.

"Yes."

Luke nodded. "Then we'll start your testing tonight."

"Yes, sir."

"None of that," Luke scolded. "Son, this- this testing won't be quite like you're used to, even at this Dojang." He shifted wearily, joints likely sore from sitting on the hard floor. "Ben, I'm an old man. I won't always be around."

He recoiled. "Uncle Luke, you aren't-"

"Relax, kid," he interrupted, shaking his head, "I meant I'm not always going to be a practicing martial artist. Taekwondo is my life, yes, but…" the man's eyes twinkled in the low light of the room, "But there's more to life, Ben. This wasn't even supposed to be in the plans."

"You wanted to be a pilot," Ben recalled with a huff of humor.

"I did," Luke confirmed. "I did, but life changed. That's something I need you to be ready for. Life changing. With everything that's going on, I don't know what's going to happen and I don't know what we should expect. I need to make sure you're ready to be a Master, because life's going to change someday, Ben, and one of these days, that change is going to be here. At this Dojang."

The man shrugged, and Ben realized with a twinge of something - fear, maybe - what he was saying.

"Maybe with everything happening, this might seem like a bad time for this promotion," Luke continued, "But there's never a  _right_  time to do the things we're afraid of. We have to do them, in spite of whatever's going on around us, because...because it's the only way to move forward."

Luke's voice got gravelly as he finally said, "And it's time for you to move forward, Ben."

"I trust you."

"I know," Luke nodded, reaching to pat Ben's knee. "That's one of the ways I know you're ready."

They sat on the floor across from each other in silence for a few moments, listening to the ticking clock, beating as reliably and dependably as the heart of the man Ben faced.

Master and student. Uncle and nephew.

...Father and son, in many ways. All the ways that mattered, at least.

"How does this work, Uncle Luke?" Ben asked quietly, breaking the silence, "I've never been present for a fourth dan promotion."

Luke smiled and shrugged again. "Neither have I. Except my own, of course." He sighed, and rolled his shoulders, wincing at the audible cracks, "You'll participate in standard senior testing tomorrow, as usual. On Sunday, you'll mostly be grading and helping me test the lower belts. For your own testing, you'll perform the creative poomse you've been working on, you'll do breaks, and maybe some sparring."

"That's it?" Ben asked, surprised, "That's less than I expected."

His uncle gave him a curious look. "Son, you've been testing for this since I taught you to tie a White Belt. And not just in this Dojang - every decision you've ever made, every word you've ever uttered - all of it has been part of this test. Whether or not you test successfully has nothing to do with the amount of pushups and situps you can do."

He reached out, pointing toward Ben's chest, "It's what's in here." His arm moved up to point to his head, "And in here. Past Forth Dan, testing is less physical and more mental, and philosophical. Keep in mind, kid, what  _you_  can do doesn't matter as much anymore - it's about what you can teach  _others_  to do."

"And you think I've been successful in my testing so far?" Ben's tone was not  _quite_  challenging, but maybe a bit closer to that of disbelief, "Sir, I would think I failed the minute I walked into an illegal fight club and then helped burn it down."

Luke huffed, "Son, someday I'm going to tell you a story about your father and I and a bar, but now's not the time." He grinned faintly at the memory, and then gazed up at Ben, his smile becoming softer, "It's not exactly that sort of test. You don't instantly fail for any one thing. You may  _think_  you should have failed for that, but I see things a little differently."

"Courtesy: The showing of respect in one's attitude and behavior toward others." Luke snorted. " _Not_  your strongest quality, but that night, after we left the building burning and came back here, I set the terms for your return to this Dojang, and even though you weren't comfortable with them, you respected me enough to see them through."

He sighed, and continued, "Integrity: The quality of being honest, and having strong moral principles. You disagreed with the way I handled Plutt, because you were genuinely concerned and you stood up for what you thought was right, though you said it a bit loudly. When I didn't budge, you were too principled to stay and train under someone who made decisions you couldn't stand behind."

"Perseverance: Steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success," he spoke softly, "You were technically qualified well in advance of many of your promotions, especially this one, but I held you back for many reasons over the years, and you only ever worked harder.  _And_ , you've sat through almost a year's worth of therapy sessions now, and I'm sure those haven't been easy."

"Self-Control," Luke whispered, "The ability to control oneself, in particular, one's emotions and desires, especially in difficult situations. You had the chance to kill Snoke that night, if you'd wanted to. You had the chance to kill the men who'd damaged the Falcon. Not only did you not do any of those things, but you prevented Rey from doing it herself."

"...and finally, Indomitable Spirit: The part of a person which makes them unique. The part which provides hope, strength, and courage to get up and face each day."

Luke paused, and looked up to Ben. "Do you know, the proudest moment I've ever had, in my whole life, was the moment I watched you stand up to him? The moment I heard you scream ' _That's not my name'_  despite knowing he might kill you for it? I've never been so proud of anything in my life. That- kid, that moment was a masterpiece. Do you remember what you said?"

"I am the son of Han Solo, and Leia Organa," Ben recited, "I am, and will always be the student of Master Luke Skywalker."

The words flowed without thought, just as they had the first time they'd been spoken.

"My heart is alive, and it beats for a living bit of starlight," he whispered, lips curling into a hint of a smile, "I have friends, and family, and they walked into hell just to bring me home. I'm Ben Solo, and-" he paused, not entirely sure that he should swear in the Dojang, but continued at Luke's gesture, "I'm Ben Solo, and fuck you for ever thinking you could take that away from me."

Luke nodded. "Yeah, kid. You stood up to the man who you should have been able to trust with your life, and you took your name - your  _self_  - back, even though you knew it might cost you everything.  _That_  is Indomitable Spirit. Best example of it I've ever seen."

The man took a deep breath, and smiled.

"You're ready, Ben. Let's begin."

* * *

Rey poked her head out of her kitchen, leaning against the wall that split the kitchen from the little open-concept dining area and living room. Pasta boiled on the oven while veggies steamed and sauce cooked, but she was more interested in staring over at Ben.

He was relaxing on her couch, writing in a journal, quite the appealing view with messy hair, freshly wet from a shower they'd shared. He'd write away for a bit, then pause and stare at the page with the end of his pen between his lips, focusing in a way that reminded her so much of the man she'd met, the first time she'd stumbled into Luke's office. The man who'd questioned her incessantly about her lack of guardian and taught her how to tie her white belt.

The significance behind him writing in that journal wasn't lost on her. It had spent most of its life sitting on one of her nightstands (well,  _his_  nightstand, at this point), completely untouched.

Now, suddenly, she got the distinct impression it was nearly full.

Ben had told her everything. Everything she'd suspected for so long, and every bit of it - from the sound of his emotionally-thick voice, to the dried blood on his knuckles, to the way his voice cracked when he finally said,  _I wish I'd said goodbye_  - it all broke her heart. She'd cried with him, and for him, and for Han, and for what could have been.

And then, the journal became something more than just a thing that sat on a nightstand. He hadn't shared any of it, and she hadn't asked, but in just over a month, he'd gone from a man just barely holding things together - tied with a fraying string - to a man at peace.

At least, he seemed that way.

Of course, they still had a million concerns, especially when it came to-

Rey's head snapped back to the kitchen at a hissing noise.

"Everything okay in there, sweetheart?"

She bit her lip, yanking the pot off the oven. While she'd been busy staring it had started boiling over, so she reached over the oven to turn the burner down a bit before putting the pot back down. "Uh...it's fine!" she sort-of lied. "No big deal!"

A soft snort came from the kitchen's entry, and she looked over to see Ben leaning his shoulder against the wall, a tubby orange cat in his arms as he smirked. "You  _sure_  you don't want me to cook? Or order something?"

"I can cook," Rey replied, a tad defensively. "Plus, we've both got promotion tomorrow. Do you really think pizza the night before a promotion is a good idea?"

Ben sighed contentedly, and took the step between them to kiss her forehead. "Okay, okay. You're right. You nervous about tomorrow? You have a  _very_  spoiled cat, by the way."

"Nah," she shrugged. "It's just senior testing. It's going to suck no matter what, so what's the point in being nervous. I'll let myself be nervous when it's time to test for second dan. And Beebee wouldn't be so spoiled if you didn't indulge him so often."

He frowned, and cradled the purring cat adorably before bending down to set him back on the floor. "I can't help it," Ben admitted. "He's too cute. He begged to be picked up."

Rey laughed, then hesitated and asked, "So, what about you?" Her voice got soft as he stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist while she stirred, "You'll be a Master on Sunday. How's it feel?"

He was silent for a moment, then breathed the words, "He's preparing me to take over."

Rey sucked in a sharp breath, mostly at the idea of someone other than Luke in charge of the Dojang, but considered it for a minute before finally saying, "Well...he's been doing that since I started as a white belt, hasn't he? Isn't that why you were the one helping with filling out forms and planning trips to competitions, and all of that?"

"Yeah," Ben nodded behind her, still nuzzling a little into her hair. "It's more real, now. Before, I was always three or four, or more, years away from it, but...after Sunday, I really could take over the Dojang, if he chose to leave. All I'd need is him to sponsor the Dojang as a grand master, and technically he could retire." He hugged her a little tighter, "I know that's probably what'll happen someday, and I  _do_ think it'll be a while, but some of the things he's saying…"

"You're nervous?" she asked softly.

A muffled "Yeah," came from behind her, and she echoed the word with a whisper before she set the large spoon she'd been stirring with down, and turned in his arms.

Lifting up on her toes, she pressed a light kiss to his lips, and pull just far enough away to murmur, "Do you remember what you said to me, just before my black belt promotion?"

The edges of his lips curled into a smile, and he pressed the words into her skin with his lips at her forehead, "You're going to be amazing, starlight. You're going to shine."

"Yeah," Rey breathed, nodding up at him. "And you were so sure of it, I believed you. So, believe me…" she pulled back to gaze up at him, into curious brown eyes as she smiled, and said, "You're going to be amazing, Ben. You wouldn't be testing if you weren't going to pass, and you aren't just going to pass." Reaching up, she ran her hand down his face, lightly caressing the scar that was slowly fading, but would never fully disappear, "You aren't just going to pass," she repeated, then whispered, "Han would have been so proud.  _So_  proud, of everything you've done."

Ben pulled her in for a kiss before she could see any of his tears, but she still felt them against her cheek, even as he slowly slid his lips over hers in a reverent, thankful kiss. He'd been kissing her like this for almost a full year, and each one still felt as surprising and as life-affirming as the first one had...though, now, she was thankful for the lack of audience.

He pulled away and blinked a few times, then cleared his throat and leaned against the counter opposite the stove. "You know," he said quietly, "that was the day I realized I was in love with you. The day of your black belt promotion, I mean."

"Really?" she asked in disbelief. He hadn't gotten to that part of the story he was writing her, and suddenly she was aching to read it. That had  _not_  been the most flattering day for her. She'd spent almost all of it being a completely sweaty mess, and-

Ben grinned softly, "Yeah. During your creative poomse. I couldn't stop watching, and when I realized, I was shocked I hadn't figured it out earlier."

"I- I didn't know it was so early," Rey admitted, turning back to inspect everything on the stove. "I had no idea. Why didn't you say anything?"

She heard him sigh behind her. "I was still so wrapped up in everything with Snoke, and I'd managed to convince myself that you couldn't possibly still feel that way about me."

Rey snorted. "Idiot." Then she paused, and said quietly, "I should have said it sooner, though. Once I'd turned eighteen. I should have made sure you knew that I meant it." She huffed, and added, "And I probably should have said it in a context that wasn't a cage match."

"That wasn't the first time you said it."

She frowned, and turned back to look at him curiously. "No...I definitely said it for the first time-"

"When you were drunk." His lips quirked, "I mean, you said it so many times without  _really_  saying it, but the first time you said the words, you were drunk. The night you slept on the futon."

A laugh escaped her lips just as she winced, "Did I really?"

"Yeah, you did," Ben said softly, " You sounded so heartbroken about it, too. It killed me not to kiss you that night. I had to go close myself in my room so I didn't spend the night on the futon, with you in my arms. I was so desperate to kiss you once you said that."

Rey turned back to him and hummed, "You can kiss me  _now_."

"I guess I probably can," he laughed, leaning down to meet her lips again. She reached up around his neck, pulling him in for a deeper kiss as his hands found her waist, and  _that_  was when the timer went off.

She dropped back down to her heels and looked up at him apologetically, then shrugged, "Food's done."

Ben hesitated while he turned to get plates out of the cabinet he stood near, and then asked her, "Actually, on the subject of creative poomse...would you mind if I borrow one of the records, and the record player?"

"Your dad's record player?" Rey nearly dropped the plate he'd handed her. "Uh, yeah, of course. You know...you should probably have them anyway."

"No, no, not a chance," Ben said, shaking his head, "Those belong to you. I just want to borrow them for the weekend."

"Of course." Rey was more than a little curious, both at his wanting to borrow them, and...she couldn't help but wonder  _which_  record he'd borrow, but-

His head tilted, "You're not going to ask me which one?"

"Nope." Rey grinned over at him and said, "A  _very_  wise black belt once told me that a creative poomse song is a very personal choice. The same person told me that I wasn't supposed to let his opinions of the song influence me, so...no. I'm not going to ask. I'll find out on Sunday."

After a moment, Ben huffed, sounding amused, and kissed her forehead again. "Alright, sweetheart. Sunday it is."

* * *

Even after years of participating in senior testing, it was still surprising Rey. Oddly enough, the day had been surprising right from the start, when she'd caught Rose and Hux outside her apartment door when she and Ben were leaving for the Dojang.  _Sure_  she'd known something was going on, but getting visual confirmation was a bit...well, surprising. Not bad, just unexpected.

Even more oddly, Ben had offered nothing but a snort and a  _huh, I wondered when that was gonna happen_.

Rose had blushed furiously, as had Hux, and they'd both started stammering something about how Phasma knew and was involved and it definitely wasn't anything bad and-

And of course, Rey shut them up with a hand-wave and a roll of her eyes, telling them to chill out. She wasn't an idiot. Considering how Rose and Phasma usually interacted, Rey would have been more shocked to discover it was some sort of illicit affair between two of them rather than three people who cared about one another.

Rose and Hux had seemed incredibly relieved after that, wishing them both well as they continued out of the building.

As if that wasn't enough, the second surprise of the day came once the got to the Dojang, and were promptly handed masks. Not the Halloween-type, of course, though she really wouldn't have put that past Luke, but instead, disposable off-white particle masks that would cover their nose and mouth.

Rey had only frowned at the one she'd been offered, not thinking much other than  _What a weird new accessory, Luke_.

That was until she'd started the run.

Despite what she'd told Ben about not being nervous, she wasn't sure she'd ever get used to the jittery, apprehensive air that surrounded each Taekwondo promotion. Long ago she'd assumed that, eventually, she'd be lackadaisical about them, but that was long before she realized how much Luke loved to subvert everyone's expectations. The man was creative, especially when it came to his torture methods.

Sneakers pounded the pavement rhythmically, and her breath came harder than usual.

It was the damned mask.

Rey tried losing herself in her thoughts, reminiscing about how promotions always felt like some sort of daunting holiday that happened with far too much regularity to  _actually_  allow her to be properly surprised by the arrival of each one. It seemed once she'd finish one promotion, she'd turn right around and see another soul-quakingly near one coming up right on the horizon. It was like some sort of odd time dilation.

Not a full ten minutes into the run and her legs were burning, tired from what she guessed was a lack of oxygen, and she nearly tripped over a raised tree root that laid across the forest trail Luke had lead them down. Rey had been relieved for an entire two minutes when she heard they weren't doing another tower run, mostly because they didn't have any students testing for Bodan and because their pool of seniors had gotten worryingly small. The university was quite a trip for a small testing group, so they'd settled for what was apparently going to be a hellish forest run.

Maybe it was just the fact that she was a little oxygen-starved, but in an odd way, as she hurtled through the woods, it felt like things were ending. Not in some sort of apocalyptic way, but…

Well, May was a month marked with many endings. The school year was over - Poe's last. Rey was rapidly approaching the point where she needed to get serious about figuring out what sort of career she might want, which seemed hopeless since she wasn't any more sure now than she'd been when Han had first asked her. The perpetual limbo Ben had been stuck in since returning to the Dojang was now, decidedly ending. Her time as a first dan was ending soon, too, but she wasn't entirely sure exactly when that would happen.

And, if Snoke had it his way, quite a few more things would be ending.

Rey tried not to think too hard about that.

She followed the others, everyone running in line by rank, until Luke raised his arm, pointing to a small clearing where they were, presumably, going to slow down and stop, probably to stretch. They did, and everyone spent a few minutes breathing deeply without masks, stretching in contemplative silence. The only sound was breathing, and the occasional bird-call from one of the tall trees that surrounded them.

Not five minutes after they'd stopped, Luke stood up and nodded to Ben, "Your turn. Send them back to the Dojang as they finish up what they need to do, and come back when everyone's done."

Ben's eyes seemed to search over Luke's face questioningly before he nodded back, and turned to address the rest of the group. He'd brought and was wearing his own personal breathing mask, something far nicer and more intimidating than what the rest of them were. It amplified the intensity of his stare, making him seem larger, and more menacing than most movie villains.

His eyes gave it away, though. His eyes held more hope and vulnerability than Kylo Ren would have ever let himself feel.

"Follow me," he ordered to the group, voice a bit muffled from the mask.

Ben took off down the path they'd been on, barreling through the forest as they all fell in line behind him, keeping his pace for what felt like an hour. Her limbs started protesting, and her breath came in shallow, weak gasps as she forced herself to move, just  _move_  through gaps between trees, leaping over rocks in the middle of the paths, and-

"Slow down!" someone said, from right behind her. Rey may have been running for nearly an hour, but she still had her instincts, and they screamed at her to jerk, and she brought her arm up for an elbow strike to the face of whoever was behind her.

Her strike was weak, but would have been enough to break a nose, so she felt an immense amount of relief to see that Ben had blocked it. How he'd managed to come up behind her, she'd never know. Hadn't he been in front of her? Had she gotten turned around?

Ben's hand came up and tugged her mask off her face, and suddenly, the world snapped into focus. The noise of the forest blurred into being like a THX sound check and suddenly there was an orchestra of nature all around her. And then, arguably the best part, was Ben, dark eyes glittering with pride and love, and even though the damned mask was covering his mouth, she could see the crinkle of a smile touch the corners of his eyes.

The rest of the group was nowhere to be seen, though she was a bit distracted to know for sure.

"Phasma's leading them," Ben explained, noticing her confusion. "I've got to catch up with them, but head back to the Dojang. You're all set."

Rey frowned. It wasn't exactly like she  _wanted_  to keep going, but- "I can keep going," she argued, "I'm fine."

He shook his head, "That's not the point. You've done what's expected of your rank. This part of your test is over." Then, something akin to mischief added to his voice as he settled her mask back on and said, "You've still got to run back there. But, turn back now." He paused, and she could have sworn he was grinning. "That's an order."

Quirking an eyebrow, she adjusted the mask, grumbling a little before winking and muttering a " _Yes sir_ ," which seemed to get his attention. He rolled his eyes at her and then pulled her in for a quick hug before he turned and shot down the path, running to catch up with the others.

Once she was alone, Rey sighed and figured getting it over with would be better than prolonging the torture, so she began running back in the direction she'd came.

Her feet continued hitting beaten path, and the third surprising thing of the day happened. She really had no idea why - maybe it was just the quiet setting of the woods and the path her feet followed - but words from a poem echoed in her mind as she heard blood rushing in her ears.

It was a little snippet of a poem about roads diverging and roads taken that nearly every high schooler ended up coming across at some point, but for some reason she couldn't put her finger on, the words kept bouncing around in her mind, and...and it just felt important. In her short life, she'd had so many moments where she'd stood at a crossroads.

Talk to Luke that day in ninth grade, or to just go home.

Join the Dojang, or don't.

Fight Luke, or quit.

Admit the truth about Plutt, or keep denying it.

Break the cement, or fail.

Get into a cage, or let things lie.

Fight Kylo Ren, or love Ben Solo.

There were a dozen more examples, but in some low-oxygen temporary-insanity thought, Rey realized that each and every time she'd had a choice - each and every time she'd stood at a crossroad, she'd done the thing that scared her most.

Sometimes because it was the right thing to do. Sometimes because it felt like the only thing to do. Sometimes...just because.

Rey stumbled, realizing the path ahead of her split, and she'd gotten too lost in her thoughts to take note of which way was the path back to the Dojang.

Two paths diverged ahead of her, and on a whim, she took the one that seemed less traveled.

Maybe it would make a difference.

* * *

Thankfully, either she'd picked the right path or both had led to the same place, because the Dojang bled into sight as she turned a final corner. There were tears in her eyes as she stopped in front of it, mixing with sweat as she ripped off the mask and gasped for breath, bending over to brace her hands on her knees as she tasted fresh air.

A throat cleared from somewhere near her, and she glanced up wearily, wondering if she'd managed to get so lost or off-track that someone had beat her back. That concern dissipated immediately when she spotted the person, noticing quickly how nervous they seemed.

She'd forgotten someone was joining them for senior testing. Generally the true torture, such as the forest run, or in previous promotions, the tower run, was reserved for anyone testing for black belt and up. Once that was over, Luke tended to host a brief testing session for all seniors - everybody with a red belt or higher.

Now, that was only one extra person, when in previous years it may have been a dozen or more.

Trying to at least  _seem_  like she knew what she was doing, she straightened up and tried to pretend as though she hadn't been about to pass out on the sidewalk for a well-deserved nap. She probably didn't completely achieve that, but considering how hellish the exam had already been, that seemed good enough.

"Hi," she breathed, clearly not fully recovered from the run.

The lower belt - Callum, a somewhat new, quiet soon-to-be Red belt - looked up from his phone, and not for the first time, Rey was surprised to see just how young all the lower-ranking students seemed.

He waved back, face a bit red from the cold, and tucked his phone in his pocket, standing up straight before he bowed, which of course was still the oddest thing. Technically any lower belt was supposed to bow to her in a Taekwondo setting since she was a Black Belt, but knowing that didn't make it feel any less weird.

As per good form, she offered a bow in return, and when they both stood back up, she pushed at the Dojang door, holding it for him so he wouldn't spend the rest of the time waiting outside.

"Are you sure it's okay for me to come in?" he asked timidly, "I didn't know Black Belt testing had finished."

Rey shook her head. "It hasn't, not for everyone, but by the time everyone gets back here we'll start senior testing, so you may as well stretch and get warmed up."

When he didn't respond she looked over and noticed his nervous expression. That...wasn't all that surprising. After all, it  _was_ his first senior testing and there wasn't anyone else at his belt level, so he'd be doing most of his testing alone. "Everything okay, Callum?"

The Dojang was empty, save for Luke, who was likely in his office, and her voice seemed to echo in the open space. Callum hesitated and took a seat on the hardwood floor, folding his sweatpant-clad legs under him. Neither of them had changed into their doboks yet, but Rey estimated that they had between thirty minutes to an hour before that was necessary, so for now, she took a seat on the floor, facing him.

He was quiet, and she took a moment to consider him carefully. Callum wasn't a student she interacted with that often. Now that there were so few students, and so many of them were Black Belts, students didn't often need her help. Not when there were second, third, and fourth dans around. As odd as it had been to be looked up to, she kind of missed it.

Callum looked young, but on second glance, she guessed he was actually not that much younger than her. Maybe a junior or senior in highschool. That put him at  _maybe_  three years her junior. His eyes moved from his firm stare on the floor, and he looked up to offer her a small smile, all blue eyes and blonde hair and dimples, and if Rey didn't have such a specific type, maybe he would have been the kind of kid she might have liked in high school. In a way, he reminded her a a bit of Liam.

"Everything okay?" she repeated, in a tone she hoped was friendly.

He winced, and explained, "Just nervous. I wish I knew what to expect, but since this part of testing is never public, I don't know what's going to happen."

"Yeah, that's how I felt," Rey sighed. "It's nothing to worry about though." She smiled softly and said, "Master Luke is never going to ask you to do something you aren't capable of. I promise. I've been training with him for…" she huffed, "Wow, almost six years now. And he's never asked me to do something I couldn't do."

Callum rolled his eyes a little and said, "Yeah, but that's  _you._ What can't you do?"

Then he immediately blushed.

Oh.

 _Oh_ , that was just-

"I- I just mean that you really seem to know what you're doing," he said quickly. "Like, didn't you live with Master Luke or something?"

Rey bit her lip, trying not to react to the slightly awkward situation she suddenly found herself in, and finally cleared her throat. "For a couple years, yeah."

He nodded, obviously interested in changing the subject immediately, and Rey couldn't help but be beyond thankful that Ben was off running in a forest somewhere, because he would have found her shyness in the situation completely hilarious. Was this what it was like to have someone younger than you have an obvious crush on you?

She chewed the inside of her lip and adjusted one of her buns, asking a little awkwardly, "So uh, you're nervous? I can't really tell you about what will happen during testing, because honestly I don't know...Master Luke usually mixes things up each time. Is there anything you'd want to practice? We have some time to work on things before everyone gets back."

The relief on his face, either at her offer or the change in subject, was immediate, and he nodded. "I'm freaking out about doing poomse alone. Do you mind helping me run through it?"

Rey smiled.  _That_  was something she could do, but first, she hesitated and said, "So...about you being nervous to test alone. I started testing when I was fourteen, and my friend Rose was at the same level as me. I was  _so_  convinced that we were going to test together all the way to Black Belt, but she quit sometime around Green, I think."

Callum tilted his head, "You had to test alone?"

"Yeah, for almost all my promotions. It's scary," she admitted, "but at the same time, you don't end up relying on anyone, and odds are, you'd test for Black Belt alone anyway. May as well get used to it early."

He swallowed hard and shrugged, still seeming nervous, but maybe a little less so. "I guess that's true."

Rey stood up and held out her hand to help him up off the floor. "Ready to work on your poomse?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "Thanks, I really appreciate it."

Feeling every bit the Black Belt she was, Rey smiled, and said, "That's what I'm here for."

* * *

Leia had half-expected and been fully prepared to hear that she wasn't invited to Ben's fourth dan promotion when she broached the subject with Luke a couple of weeks after her confession. It would have burnt against her heart like a hot-iron poker, but she wouldn't have thought to argue against it. Not after everything.

She knew her own faults. She only regretted that Ben was the one to suffer for her mistakes.

So when she got the text from Ben himself - not Luke, who'd been acting as the unanimously elected intermediary between the two for weeks - telling her when the promotion was and when she should show up, it had come as something of a shock.

She suspected that was her late husband's and Luke's influence on Ben manifesting. Leia knew herself and knew she wouldn't have been nearly so forgiving of her own family if she'd gone through what Ben had.

If nothing else, she truly did believe that of all the possible options after that terrible decision so many years ago, Luke taking Ben in had been the best one by far.

When she walked into the Dojang, the midday breeze gusting about and blowing her shawl as she stepped inside, she couldn't help but compare this event with Ben's first promotion. The audience was noticeably smaller this time around than when she'd first come years ago. She could still remember the hushed growing vibrato that had permeated the room as Luke led his students through a series of exercises and had them demonstrate before himself everything they'd learned and more. Ben had been twelve then, barely more than a boy but tall and a little gangly and all spindly nerves as he was asked to perform for an audience he'd never met before.

The building bore new scars from its time since then. Fourteen years was a long time for any place, no matter how well built. It was an even longer time for family. Even without looking Leia could see the wear on the building. A scuff in the wood panel her, the dark leftover shadow from a mirror that had to be replaced, and other, less physical things. The weight of Luke's stare, the staleness in the air, and the musty, clammy feeling of a noose tightening more and more.

A loud kihap interrupted her thoughts, drawing her attention back to the main event.

Leia smiled, seeing Ben execute a series of chained combinations, starting from one end of the room to the next. She hid her grin, seeing the awestruck and dare she say adoring looks amongst the lower belts. Maybe she didn't have the right to feel be proud of her son, not after how little a hand she actually had in raising him, but seeing him like this, in his element, as focused on his art as Han had been with the Falcon, well, she could indulge herself a little.

"Baro," Phasma called from the front of the room. Ben noticeably relaxed, returning the leg he hadn't let touch the floor for the past ten minutes to ground.

It was the first time Leia was seeing Phasma in a Martial Arts setting, and while Leia was no expert, she could tell Phasma was good, if a bit harsh. Leia had seen many self-assured and confident people throughout her life project an aura of power to the world, this declaration not to fuck with them, but rarely had she seen someone dare the world to do it and see what happens.

Phasma turned to Luke, who'd been leaning forward in his seat, with steepled hands and a pensive expression. There was a small sheaf of papers in front of him, much smaller than there was in years prior, and a stack of wood and cement on the ground beside, but if he looked bothered by this apparent sickly sign her brother gave no clue of it. The two masters conferred for a few seconds, before Luke rose from the chair, and Phasma went around and sat down in her own chair.

Luke cleared his throat.

"Everybody in please," he said, and like a flock of migratory birds on command the various students stood up from where they'd been resting to the side and shuffled back into their rows and columns. A little over ten students, and almost half of that was comprised of Ben and his friends.

The audience this time around were few in number. Luke's lower ranking students were all high school students, with the exception of the one blue belt who looked to be in his early thirties, contrasting sharply with the next highest belt, a skittish-looking young man who kept looking at the black belts with unhidden admiration.

"Five minute break," Luke ordered. "Everybody  _chiryat_!  _Kungyet_!"

And like that the formation broke apart like a beehive without a queen. The lower belts each splintered off and away from each other, heading for their respective guests in the audience or running to use facilities.

It shouldn't have surprised her to see she had her own visitor, but once again, in hindsight, it wasn't surprising at all.

"Rey," Leia greeted with a nod.

The young woman who saved Ben - and Leia didn't delude herself into thinking it wasn't anything other than that - stood in front of her, red-faced and sweaty from the demonstration so far. There was once a time that Leia's mere presence would have been enough to cow the girl, but Leia didn't miss those days.

"Ben told me everything," Rey said by way of returning the greeting. She looked like she had about three dozen other things she wanted to say, and that one was just the first to reach her mouth.

Leia held her stare, and made sure to not blink when she said, "I see."

Grey. The world had been slowly going grey for years now, ever since Han's death.

In her more petty moments, because Leia was a lonely woman and no one could be as spiteful as the lonesome, she'd sometimes entertained the thought that the old fool had gone ahead of her early just to reclaim some of that old freedom he'd had before he'd met her, and taken the color of the world with him. She'd never told anyone this of course, not even Luke, because Luke had enough to deal with on his own in between looking out for Ben and all but raising Rey, and mourning his best friend. He didn't need to know about how all the color was draining out of her life with every passing day.

Seeing Ben again the morning after the fight club burned -  _not_  Kylo Ren, not that facsimile that Snoke had so gloatingly called her son by - had been a godsend. A literal Hail Mary of a wakeup call. And that, if anything, was what kept Leia from seeing nothing but shadow nowadays.

And the reason for that was this lovely young woman in front of her.

"I'm not going to ask you why," Rey started, voice soft. "I just...I wanted to let you know that I don't hate you. And neither does Ben."

Leia blinked.

"Luke doesn't hate you," Rey continued, listing off names and counting them on her fingers. "Maz doesn't hate you. Threepio doesn't hate you. And I'm sure as hell, Han didn't hate you."

Now Leia blinked again, a little harder, to clear away the sudden dust that had gotten in her eye. It was silly, it's not like Rey could have known about Leia's own private fears. The ones that had gotten louder in the years without a boisterous and cocky voice to reassure her otherwise.

The grey, swirling in the background of her vision, stilled and paused.

"I still have his ashes," Leia confessed, because why the hell wouldn't she. This girl was as good as family anyways.

A slow and deep inhale through the nose was Rey's response.

"Does Ben know?" she then asked.

"I haven't told him." Leia shook her head. "I wouldn't be surprised if he already knew at this point."

"Why haven't you…?"

Leia gave this question the consideration it deserved.

"Because I had hope," she settled on, and then took a second to steel herself against the bitter chuckle that threatened to escape her. "Hope that things would work out. Hope that Ben would one day forgive us, well," and here the bitterness did overflow in the form a cynical huff, "forgive  _me_. I know it seems hypocritical, especially coming from me, but I had hope."

Leia eyed the girl, appraising her. "You've been good for him," she noted.

The seriousness between them seemed to dissipate with her words and Rey blushed, looking down. Only for a second though, because suddenly her expression turned resolute and the girl who'd once looked terrified to even step foot in Leia's house morphed into the confident young woman who'd struck out at the living viper that was Snoke's operation, all for the sake of one lost Solo. It was a remarkable transition and Leia wondered just when it was that this young child who'd once cried in her arms turned into someone so tall.

"I love him," Rey said, calmly and seriously. There was a weight to those words, one Leia resolved not to take for granted. People like Rey and Han were naturally careful about who they said those words to, a fact that Leia had learned once long ago.

"Two minute warning!" Phasma shouted, turning heads and prompting curses from those students who'd spent the time mingling instead of grabbing water or a quick snack in.

Leia took the opportunity to pose the question that she'd been waiting to ask. "How has he been? Has he been...happy?"

She could have just asked Luke. She probably should have asked Luke, instead of Ben's girlfriend. She was probably crossing some lines by doing this, instead of going straight to the source herself. Rey would never betray Ben's confidence, Leia knew that as surely as the sky was held up by hope and dreams, but she'd crossed so many lines in her entire life that she didn't care if she wasn't allowed this moment of cowardice.

Rey looked at her strangely for a moment, before a trueborn smile blossomed on her face. "You know, someone else once asked me that same question. Three guesses as to who."

Leia chuckled weakly. "Yeah, it sounds like something he'd have done."

"Mmm," Rey pursed her lips and crossed her arms, eyes going distant as she revisited some memories of her own. "Look, Leia, I'm not going to lie, but I don't think that's something I should answer."

Disappointed but understanding, Leia nodded and said, "I understand."

"No I mean," Rey ran her fingers through her ponytail in a nervous tic, "This whole thing? The asking how he's doing, trying to sneak information from others without confronting him...it's not healthy. For you or for him. It was one thing when Ben didn't have the whole story but now he does and it's like you're expecting him to transfer all that old hatred over to you and it's just-"

The young girl made a vaguely rude gesture, one that Leia almost cracked a smile at the sight of. There was a certain charm to Rey's brashness, a shine to her crude exterior that definitely made Leia see how she and Han had gotten along so well.

"Sorry," Rey said, almost like an afterthought. "I know that's probably not the answer you're looking for but-"

"On the contrary," Leia interrupted smoothly, "I'm grateful." Rey seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at no longer having to explain herself. "It's not often that I have people telling me they won't do something, and are willing to back it up with why too."

Usually it was  _Can't_. After a lifetime of ordering people and telling people what to do, Leia had gotten precious few  _Won'ts_ in comparison to  _Can'ts._

Rey looked at her oddly after that, but suddenly Luke was calling everyone back into the main area, and the veil of normality fell away between the two. Rey looked to the main area, back at Leia, torn between wanting to say more and not wanting to hold everyone up. This  _was_  Ben's fourth dan promotion after all.

"Go on," Leia prodded, gnarled hand pointing forward for her young charge to follow. "We'll talk afterwards."

A vague hint of hues left after her, and Leia sighed, settling in her seat after adjusting herself to avoid stiffness. Talking with Rey and the other young ones always brought some of the colors back, however the tone of the conversation went. It wasn't anything to do with their ages specifically, Leia had talked to plenty of people around a similar age in the years since Han's death, and none of them had bravely roused the technicolor settings of her world like Ben's friends did.

Odd perhaps, but instead of worrying about it, Leia took as a good sign. If Ben's friends could push that encroaching darkness in her eyes, even unconsciously, then they were worth it.

Promotion continued as normal. After the physical limits and combinations came sparring, and Leia had to swallow the gut reaction to the wrenching sight of Ben facing two on one again in the form of Poe and the thirty-year old blue belt. Not too long ago this would have been a common occurrence in Ben's life, facing men who meant him harm on a daily basis and shattering himself piece by piece in an effort to survive and triumph. Dark reds and angry oranges floated in from the edge of her sight, thinking of Snoke, and what he'd done to her son.

Things on that front were still stonewalled. Despite the man's recent attempts at blocking Maz's business license renewal because she didn't have a liquor license and somehow the relevant parties had been given ample evidence that she actually had been selling alcohol, the man had kept mostly quiet. Well, not quiet per se, but he hadn't moved any more pieces on his chess board in an attempt to trap them.

It took her a few nights of thinking as to why, but the answer came to her when she'd been watching a nature documentary and learned of the way some reptiles would go days, weeks, without eating, lying in wait for the opportune time. One that stood out had been the Komodo Dragon, which, with a single bite, would then slowly and methodically pursue its prey for weeks, watch as infection set in, as disease and rot overtook the wounded animal, as sickness unlike almost anything else the world had to offer beset its target. It would do so, patiently observing, until eventually the prey dropped dead, but not after a mounting slew of bites and snaps that the animal couldn't do anything about, because nature was cruel and no other could help it once it'd been marked.

Snoke had managed the first bite. Leia's resources were all fraying now. Very few people were willing to listen to a self-aggrandizing woman with no money, and those that were, were simply too scared to get in the way of the clash between titans. Hux was settling in fine at her friends company, but she could tell without even looking that Poe was stifling in his environment. His graduation was just a few weeks away and what did he have to show for his efforts? Several years of questionable experience at a clinic and several mysteriously missing applications to several graduate programs.

The stress of the academic probationary hearing had affected Finns other courses, and he was in very real danger of losing his scholarship for an entirely different reason now as a result. Meanwhile, Phasma was barely making due with the two jobs in the constantly closing and re-opening diner and the dojang, while Ben, Luke, and Rey were all under serious threat of review and loss of belts.

Leia closed her eyes, trying not to let her frustration show. Back in her days in politics, when things were looking dire, the common sense idea was to look to compromise on something with the opposition, just so some headway could be made. The problem was they had nothing that Snoke would be willing to meet them for, nothing other than their heads or the Dojang itself, and Leia would never ask her brother to do that. She knew the differences in their life came from the way they were raised, but even though this place was almost a prison for her brother at times, even though it'd brought as much heartache as any funeral to him, Luke's life was here.

Someone's hand on her arm jerked her out of her silent contemplation, and Leia glared up at this interloper for half a second before she realized who it was.

"Amilyn!" Leia said, clearing off imaginary dust from the empty metal fold-up chair beside her. "I didn't know you were coming."

Amilyn Holdo, her son's former principal and, if Leia's gossip was up to date, Luke's secret rendezvous from the past few years, smiled. She'd opted for a deceptively simple curl to her hair, letting it fall and hang past her shoulders, the roots of her natural blonde hair beginning to show at the top. She wore a black and white spotted blouse, and looked more like she belonged on the cover of Vogue than behind a desk taking too much crap from parents.

"Luke invited me," Amilyn said, her voice low as the sounds of sparring melded in the background. Lively lavender and violet trailed behind Amilyn like lost fireflies. "Said you could use some company."

"Did he now?" Leia's gaze traveled over to her brother, who was doing a remarkable job of making his furtive glances their way seem pure coincidence. Unbidden, a soft warm smile appeared on Leia's face as affection and frustration with her brother manifested in equal amounts. "What else did he say?"

"That you've probably had a hell of a month and that you could use some cheering up," Amilyn provided, perfectly content with throwing Luke under the bus. "Among other things."

She didn't specify what, but it wasn't like she needed to. Luke probably hadn't told her the full story, as that was Leia's and Ben's prerogative, but Amilyn was smart, and, even better, she  _knew_  Leia. She probably knew Leia better than she knew herself at times. It was terrifyingly easy to lose yourself when you spent enough time acting in charge. Sometimes, the real you just shriveled and turned to dust after enough time in the dark, and all that was left was a desiccated husk of what should have been a good mother.

Those were the regrets talking. Regrets that, Leia feared, had a good point. What had she done for Ben, other than serve as some deus ex machina for him and his friends?

Amilyn was one of the few people who'd seen Leia without the steel and stone mask that had almost become a second layer of skin over the years. She was better than a friend, she was someone willing to call Leia out on her own crap, of which there were precious few nowadays.

"And your opinion?"

Amilyn dared to chuckle. "Leia, I don't think my opinion matters one iota. You'll keep beating yourself over your choices and not a thing I can say will change that."

Leia was silent at that. It was true after all.

The two settled and resumed watching the event. Five minutes in though, and Leia couldn't help but voice the thought that had been sizzling in her mind since yesterday.

"I don't understand why I'm here," she said, wincing as the boy with the red stripe and blue belt took a strike to the forehead in a spar. His partner, Poe, immediately retreated, seeing the dazed look cross the young man's face, before he grinned, extending a fist signaling he was ready to resume when he was.

Amilyn didn't once look away, eyes rapt and seemingly focused on each of the people before them. Leia wondered what this must look to her, as an outsider, seeing these young kids learn how to hurt others and show off their apparent knowledge. Yes, there were several people who were of majority, but Leia knew Amilyn very rarely ever stopped seeing people as students. They just stopped being  _her_  students in particular.

"I'd think that's pretty easy to explain, actually," Amilyn said. She kept her tone deliberately nonchalant, assuming that knowing teacher's tone that had so scuffed Leia the wrong way in college and high school. "You're here because Ben invited you."

Leia decided to spare the woman the scathing remark on the tip of her tongue, if only because for once she didn't  _want_  to get in a verbal spar. "You know damn well why that's not what I mean," she sighed.

"Mmmm." Amilyn sounded like she was humoring someone missing something very obvious, a sound Leia was very familiar with considering how often she'd used it with Han.

Leia tried glaring, but couldn't even muster the energy for that. There was just...too much grey in the world to work herself up over this, especially when Amilyn had made it expressly clear she was going to be as unhelpful as possible.

The resumed watching the event. They watched the colored belts bow to the higher belts and assume their positions to the side. They watched each as these bright lights burned brighter with every command, every order from Luke or Phasma. Leia watched and felt the recently stirred guilt churn and writhe and mock her because look at  _how much_  she'd missed out on, by letting her fears overshadows her faults for so long.

"He reminds me of his father," Leia spoke up once more, seeing the colored belts join the demonstrations area once more. They were moving on to self-defense from what she could tell. "Han would have loved this."

A small knowing smile graced Amilyn's countenance. "It sounds to me like he did. I heard about the videos."

Han used to practically vibrate in place whenever he'd gotten his hands on one of Luke's secret videos of these events. He used to shout and celebrate in time with every failure or success of Ben's, emphasizing, overcompensating and wildly gesticulating as if to try and bridge time and space and let Ben know that his dad  _was_  watching.

Leia just used to set beside him, torn between smiling and scolding her husband, who'd only half-heartedly return a riposte or two before the screen would demand his attention again and there'd be a loud whoop of joy as Ben did something new and surprising.

Soon the building was filled with kihap and shouts as over a dozen alternated basic self-defense techniques, swapping occasionally to give them practice with people of different body sizes and heights. Shorter people had to decide how to best escape those much larger than they, while the taller ones were often the subject to weapon strikes. Leia shivered, easily imagining the few times she'd seen Luke put those skills to use.

Self-defense ended, after some worryingly realistic demonstrations where they showed various takedowns between each other, including gratuitous loud slams of bodies hitting mats from throws. People in the audience were beginning to rustle and hustle and whisper to each other and Leia had to consciously stop herself from snapping at them, telling them to shape up and be respectful. Even if she wasn't as attached to this building and Taekwondo as Luke and Ben obviously were, this was still  _theirs_  and Leia's protective instinct had been in full force for months now.

That left two major categories to go through. Leia knew for a fact that Luke liked to leave breaking technique for last, to end the long and stressful event on a high note for almost everyone. Which only meant, that the next thing would be poomse.

The grey and blur of the world buzzed, patiently awaiting this soon-to-be-disaster.

Leia knew Ben was going to perform a personally created poomse. She'd seen how intimate and clearly personal these could get, once when she'd seen footage of Ben's first dan promotion, and twice when she'd seen Rey's only a scant couple of years prior. Seeing Ben's creative expression, his assertion of who he was, what Taekwondo meant to him at the time...it had been bitter, especially since it had all been seen from behind a screen, when it was safe to look, because the distance and the passing hours between recording and viewing seemed to excuse and justify any reason for not being there in the first place.

"I always enjoy these parts the most," Amilyn chatted amicably, seemingly oblivious to the hook searching Leia's insides for something vital and painful. "They're always so creative."

Her words threatened to turn into a breathless and self-defeatist chuckle, so Leia could only keep quiet and await the knell that would signal Ben's performance.

The lower belts performed well. As well as Leia's untrained but sharp mind could manage to grasp. There were minor imperfections here and there, she imagined, but Leia could barely focus on the patient whorl of color that seemed to hover around the collection of Luke's black belt students, let alone the bland and pallid students, some of whom would leave Luke's Dojang the very next month.

Like a blade on the end of a swinging pendulum, Leia was acutely aware of every tracking second, and with it came the realization that Ben wanted her for  _this_  part.

"Ben Solo!" Phasma called out, and at last Ben emerged from the group. Tightly controlled, Ben approached the table, and Leia saw him exchange words with the examiners.

Surprise flashed across Luke's for a moment before he chuckled. He nodded and gestured to the patiently waiting pair of Poe and Rey, who were holding-

 _Oh_.

Leia blinked the tear back, willing it back into nonexistence with the sheer force of will only a widow in her fifties could manage.

She'd almost forgotten about the silly old thing. It seemed so long ago when she passed Han's old records on to Rey, and even longer since she'd heard them, scratchy vinyl making magic and music through the sound of technology and a little bit of electricity. Han had a particular favorite, one he liked to play on constant repeat, even if it meant going back and moving the stylus of the old Victrola every few minutes. He'd put it on and sing along, voice off-key even as he worked on the Falcon in his twilight years, and-

Ben nodded to Rey and Poe. Leia couldn't see which record he'd selected, but she knew even without seeing, which it would be.

Poe strung the cable, using an extension cable, and Rey removed the old, perfectly preserved vinyl, and carefully laid it down in the platter. They cued up the appropriate song with the controls built in, and, seeing Ben take up position in the center of the room, waited.

Leia knew it was probably her own mind dramatizing things, but she could almost hear an old, rascally voice say,  _That's my boy_  and she found herself nodding along, echoing the words on her lips even without meaning to.

One breath, two breaths, and then it began. The stylus descended, and the faint  _pop pop pop_  started, and Leia watched with bated breath and waiting heart as a Solo boy gave himself to that song one more time, soft piano keys echoing throughout the room.

> " _Slow down, you crazy child;_
> 
> _You're so ambitious for a juvenile._
> 
> _But them if you're so smart, then tell me,_
> 
> _Why are you still so afraid?"_

Ben chambered his right leg, bringing his right arm in a guard, and extended, slowly. His kick rose in a slow ascent, climaxing in a pose that would leave most gymnasts jealous, arm outstretched, as if reaching up to the sky.

He rechambered, and spun, performing some complicated motion Leia couldn't track and ending once again in a slow extension, this time with his arms out in a crossing block.

> " _Where's the fire, what's the hurry about?_
> 
> _You better cool it off before you burn it out._
> 
> _You've got so much to do,_
> 
> _And only so many hours in a day."_

"You said you were wondering why you're here," Amilyn said beside Leia, sounding far off and so near as to practically breathe in her at the time. The woman gestured to Ben plaintively. "I'd say you know now."

Leia knew that. She could see that and so much more.

> " _But you know that when the truth is told,_
> 
> _That you can get what you want or you get old._
> 
> _You're gonna kick off before you even_
> 
> _Get halfway through-_
> 
> _When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?"_

Color...beautiful majestic blues, vibrant radiant greens, a field of sunshine shades and geysers of tinctures and chroma. Leia knew no one else would see it. Color like nothing she'd ever dreamed of, like nothing no human could ever conceive of. The color of a man learning he's going to be a father. The tint of a boy proudly drawing his entire world on a piece of paper so it'd be preserved on the kitchen fridge. The shade of a woman realizing how much love she could feel for such a small young thing, and not fearing it, but instead embracing it.

> " _Slow down, you're doing fine,_
> 
> _You can't be everything you want to be_
> 
> _Before your time._
> 
> _Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight,_
> 
> _Tonight-"_

It was color and stains and blushes and a library's worth of pigmentation. It was sound and sight blended into one, a tale of a young man who'd just learned how much his father loved him, a slow and careful dancing expression of everything they'd missed.

> " _Too bad but it's the life you lead._
> 
> _You're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need,_
> 
> _Though you can see when you're wrong, you know,_
> 
> _You can't always see when you're right. you're right."_

Ben turned then, and their eyes met, and Leia was in awe of her son. Her son who'd gone and grown up on her, who could still smile at a mother who'd done so much wrong and who still struggled to do what's right. He held her stare, and Leia didn't know if there were words in the English language to express the kind of pride and love she felt for him then.

> " _You've got your passion, you've got your pride,_
> 
> _But don't you know that only fools are satisfied?_
> 
> _Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true._
> 
> _When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?"_

Because Ben Solo brought color back to her world. Maybe not intentionally, but some of the greatest things in her life had been completely incidental. Meeting Luke. Marrying Han. Having Ben.

Unintentional things were some of her greatest treasures, and supplied some of her best memories.

She watched in awe as Ben continued moves, many of which she didn't have names for, and she got lost in the lyrics, and the music itself, and all the memories it brought to the surface.

> " _Slow down, you crazy child,_
> 
> _And take the phone off the hook and disappear for awhile._
> 
> _It's all right, you can afford to lose a day or two,_
> 
> _When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?"_

"Slow down you crazy child," Leia whispered along with Billy Joel, chuckling and feeling a strange wetness gather once more. She sighed, and, just this once, allowed herself this indulgence.

> " _And you know that when the truth is told,_
> 
> _That you can get what you want or you can just get old,_
> 
> _You're gonna kick off before you even get half through._
> 
> _Why don't you realize, Vienna waits for you?_
> 
> _When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?"_

When the song ended, Leia was the first to clap.

She could hear the little voice niggling in the back of her head and something that sounded very much like her dead husband prodding and she decided  _to hell_  with propriety.

"That's my boy," Leia shouted, cackling at the way he turned on the spot to look into the audience. People were clapping, applauding, congratulating, and Ben, little boy Ben who'd once asked Leia if she had superpowers, was turning bright red and acting bashful, and she couldn't resist adding, "That's my son! That's my Ben!"

Their gazes met once more, and for the first time in fourteen years, the tightness behind her chest unclenched. Just a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A celebration, and an unbiased problem.
> 
> Author Notes:
> 
> Attack: One of my favorite songs, in one of my favorite scenes. _Sigh._
> 
> Onfire: I know I'm one of the co-writers and we knew this was coming eventually, but I can't help but feel proud of Ben just a little bit. Fourth Dan is a big step. It's a mastery of one's self as much as it is a mastery of Taekwondo and I hope we've managed to display that in these chapters leading up to this. Mastery in this sense, doesn't mean they know everything, but it does mean they know enough to continue their journey, and perhaps, help guide others as well.  
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	49. Black Belt, Seventh Stripe, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We apologize in advance for the smut. It just sort of happened.
> 
> ...no wait I don't apologize.
> 
> Anyway, we're getting to the end! :D

Ben used to wonder if he should be more embarrassed about how the most difficult part of a Taekwondo examination often came the easiest to him.

Even back when his parents' names inspired the kind of toxic smoky choking feeling that made him want to scream a breathless scream - back when Taekwondo was his only cling to normalcy amidst figuring out his new life with the strange and awkward Luke - Ben had never struggled with breaking technique.

In his time at  _The First Order_ , Ben even came to accept that he excelled at breaking things. Boards, spirits, people. Snoke, wrapped in the guise of a generous master, had praised Ben's ability at piercing and blunt force trauma-ing his way through any obstacles.

At the time, Ben had preened under the poison honeyed words. It was only later on that he'd wondered when it was his hands had gotten so red. So stained with blood.

He used to wonder if there was something telling about him as a person that all he seemed to be good at was learning how to destroy. If that was perhaps why his parents got rid of him. If they could somehow tell what kind of person he was going to become long before he'd actually gotten there.

Over time, the sense of betrayal rotted into something putrid and foul, a scab on the surface of his soul, but Ben had always wondered.

Until now.

"Are you ready?" Luke asked. The soft reassuring tone was like a clarion through the depths of Ben's mind.

Everyone had gathered around the center of the Dojang. The hour was running late, and now the only thing stopping them from proceeding was the four blocks of concrete stacked neatly in the center of the circle of people around Ben and Luke. For their own safety, everyone gave them a ten foot wide berth, but that didn't stop audience members from circling around the for good angles to take video, or the colored belts from gossiping with each other.

"Mr. Solo?"

The boy who'd only ever thought himself good for one thing woke up. Ben closed his eyes, and something - something wild and laughing - possessed him to smirk. The thrum of life beat within his chest, and the man who'd once wanted to die took a long and calming breath.

"...Ben?"

It wasn't just drums playing in his ears anymore...

"I'm ready, sir."

Ben met his uncle's eyes with a steady gaze. He tried to convey everything he felt, years of gratitude in one last silent exchange, before the threshold was crossed. All the thanks that would never be enough and the breaths that were yet to be because the man took in a young and angry child when he didn't have to.

Luke looked him up and down, and something sad and a little mournful passed behind the inscrutable expression he wore. It was gone soon and something grander took its place instead, something unbreakable and wise. He nodded and cleared his throat in preparation.

"Ben Solo!" Luke announced, and his words hooked the ears and hearts of everyone listening. "Are. You.  _Ready_!?"

"Sir!" The student inhaled, a master exhaled. "Yes sir!"

Not just drums...

" _Action_!"

The world went quiet, and everything sank into the infinite timespace pockets that hung between each second, and Ben knew he would always remember this, with the crystal clarity he was feeling now. Even when he'd one day turn old and brittle, he'd remember the cool air on his neck, the piercing howl of his voice as he tore the silence asunder with his kihap, the perfect snap of his hand as it came down in a fist, and the realization that there was going to be so much  _more -_ that his life extended beyond this building and Taekwondo, and above all, beyond the cage he once thought he deserved.

_My name is Ben Solo-_

It wasn't just drums in his ears...

It was a freaking  _rock concert._

_-and I am so much more than I ever thought I could be._

The stone shattered under his touch, and for once, Ben didn't feel bad about how easy it came to him.

Four slabs of concrete - separated only by centimeter thick washers - impacted down as he put over fourteen years of training and strength into a single defining strike. They split down the middle and corrugated cracks spread from the top slab as it broke into pieces. The concrete halves of the bottom three hung slumped in place, perfectly balanced against each other for a single moment before physics took over. The pile collapsed into a small dust cloud that smelled like a construction site and tasted like victory.

Laughter bubbled up in his chest as exhilaration provided the soundtrack, and Ben Solo rose from the wreckage of the damage he'd wrought.

The cleanup was surprisingly efficient. Unlike the others, Ben had opted for only holding on to a piece about the size of a tennis ball from the cement blocks, mostly because holding on to over fifty pounds of rubble as a memento seemed a little silly, especially in light of how so many of his previous boards had been lost in the process of trying to recover his possessions from storage.

Ben was still riding the high when they lined up, and he saw the small unassuming opaque package in his uncle's hands, and the  _ker-thump_  of his heart was only a little less world-shaking than he'd guessed it would be.

Everyone was abuzz with talk, whether glowing with pride over their own successes, consoling each other about their failures (one girl had failed her power break, and almost broke her hand doing so), but at the sight of Master Luke standing at the head of the room, quiet, yet holding an indiscernible package, one by one they all fell silent.

"I'm sure you're all excited to get going," Luke said, and if Ben hadn't been so close he never would have caught the misty-eyed sheen that his uncle was expertly hiding. "I know these things can drag on, especially for our less entrenched members." He gestured to the various guests, earning him a couple of chuckles. "But there's one last thing I'd like to do before we all leave to stuff our faces with food."

More chuckles.

Luke surveyed the room, pausing noticeably whenever his stare landed on Leia, Rey, or any of the other mavericks who had somehow gotten entangled in Ben's life.

"I've been in this business for a long time," Luke said. "Some of you may know me from stories around town if you're from the area. Some of you may only know may through your experiences here in this building. Regardless, I can assure you, I've been around for awhile." Sky blue eyes swiveled over and pinned Ben in place. "So when I say this is a first for me, I'm not exaggerating or embellishing anything." Luke crossed his arms behind him. "Fourteen years ago, I started teaching a bright young boy."

Ben was aware of everyone's attention drifting over to him once more.

"At first we didn't get along all that well." Ben exercised that famed black belt self control and suppressed his snort. As thankful as Ben had been for what Luke had done for him, 'getting along' had been in exercise in self-flagellation for both of them in the early months. "He was young, I was old. He was brash, I was slow. He had great potential, and took to Taekwondo with a gusto I'd never seen before but I had to hold him back more than once so we could properly nurse that talent of his." Luke chuckled, shaking his head in wonder. "You can imagine how well that went at first."

Another titter tore through the audience, and even Ben spared a smile for the gentle ribbing.

"Like everything in life, things changed. Whether through sheer stubbornness on his part, and pure obstinacy on mine, that bright young boy started to learn, and this crusty old man began to teach."

Luke stepped in front of Ben, and Ben stood up just a little straighter in the presence of his master. "And as time passed things changed even further," he intoned, "That boy grew into a remarkable young man, one I am proud to call my student, and, even more importantly, my family. He grew up to be like a son to me, and like family, we fought." Luke paused, and he deliberated over his next few words, as if wondering how much he should reveal. At Ben's supporting nod, he continued. "We fought bitterly and spitefully, the way only family can, and there were times I truly worried I would never see him again, whether through his own actions or mine."

Ben swallowed the lump in his throat.

"He is here today, before me" Luke said, and Ben knew he was speaking to him, with everyone else just there listening in. "He's grown  _so_ much from the boy I once took in. From the boy who once stood on my doorstep and wondered if he was good enough. In the course of the time I've known him, I've come to learn that inasmuch as I taught him, Benjamin Solo has also taught me.

"Ben, if you would step forward please?"

There was disconnect between Ben's body and his mind, but he was thankful his body followed through with the command nonetheless. He stepped forward and turned around to face the crowd. There was an everlasting ache in his hands, and a mild discomfort as his scar pulsed with anticipation, but he was calm and at peace, and any thoughts of brands and monsters were for once, at rest.

"There is a great deal that goes into being a fourth dan in Taekwondo," Luke murmured, seemingly to just Ben, but loud enough for everyone to hear. He grabbed the opaque package from the examiners table and opened it at the top with facile rip. "Beyond the physical aspect, beyond the kicking and punching and the admittedly very impressive fighting techniques, being a fourth dan involves a lot more. You are recognized as a master in the art by the community at large, but that doesn't mean you are perfect."

"A master raises those around them." His uncle pulled out a long thickly folded bundle a little over a foot in length. "As students we often fall into the mentality that we must reach up to attain the same peaks as our teachers. Very often we forget that our teachers are not above us, but instead beneath, lifting us on their shoulders, balancing us, and helping us reach distances that they never could."

These were words of praise that a teenage Ben would once have scoffed at, that a angry and resentful Kylo Ren would have derided as empty and meaningless.

"A master's duty is not to Taekwondo as a whole." Luke removed the rubber bands on each end, loosening the tight formation of the black cloth in his hands. "It is to the people around them. We are recognized as masters of a martial art, but also, we are masters of ourselves. We recognize our own flaws, and we take action. We see the strengths in others, and we seek help.

"Ben, turn around please."

Ben did so, feet clumping against the wooden floor.

His uncle stepped in front of him, an obsidian colored belt in his hands and the faint scent of a silica gel packet hanging around him like architectural petrichor.

It took a few minutes for Luke to untie Ben's old belt, worn and loose after four years. He was very deliberate in tying the new one around Ben, re-adjusting, moving the ends such that they each hung from the knot at his waist with equal measure.

The belt read  _Ben Solo_  followed by the phonetic approximation of his name in Hangul characters. At the end of that were four yellow stripes sewn into the belt.

Luke took a step back. His soft smile had returned.

"Turn around."

Ben breathed in deep and did so.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Luke boomed. "Join me in welcoming, for the first time ever, Master Ben Solo! 4th Dan!"

* * *

Ben was about to lose his damn mind.

The bar they were all in was a familiar one - the same one Phasma had picked for Rey's completely inappropriately located eighteenth birthday celebration. It probably shouldn't have been surprising they'd ended up there since Phasma was the person who'd suggested the evening's event.

Phasma had put up a bit of a fit when Ben had told her, after his successful fourth dan promotion, that he just wanted to go home and rest. It seemed like a perfectly reasonable plan to him and his still-throbbing hand (concrete breaks didn't get any easier each time you did them), but Phasma had insisted they at least go out to celebrate sometime within a week or two.

So there he was, in a bar, a week after his promotion, surrounded by friends and family. The timing worked out well since it was almost Rey's twentieth birthday and since Poe had just graduated, so it was sort of three celebrations in one and took a bit of pressure off him. Rey, his complete traitor of a girlfriend, had been fully supportive of Phasma's plan to drag him away from his comfortable Friday night plans of sweatpants and Netflix. Ben had been mildly annoyed, but once he'd seen the short skirt and somewhat tight sweater she'd put on...well. Who could really blame him for suddenly changing his mind?

But now he had a bit of a problem. He was in a bar, surrounded by people - even Luke and his mother were in their own private booth, accompanied by Maz, Chewie, and Lando, all drinking and laughing over old stories - and he had half a mind to think Phasma had slipped Rey a drink because, well-

"Oh sorry about that," Rey said in a tone that told him she absolutely wasn't, "I didn't mean to bump into you,  _sir_."

Ben had always been secular, but right then he was seriously wondering if devils existed and if one of them had body-snatched his girlfriend because... _fuck_.

Technically now that he was a Master it was the appropriate title, and  _technically_  it was respectful, even in casual social situations but-

Rey spun on the balls of her feet, backing away from counter and letting another patron pass them by. The move left her drifting dangerously close to Ben, and he was treated to the damning sight of the flush creeping along the back of her neck.

Light danced across the bits of exposed skin she showed, and Ben followed every trace and turn of her head as she angled and looked back and up at him with another ghost of a smile, completely aware of where his eyes had been drawn to.

Maybe it would have been different if she'd said it in the sort of tone she used while in the Dojang, or during the rare times she still addressed Luke in the same way, but the way she said it now, with fluttering eyelashes and a knowing half smile?

Yeah, Ben wasn't going to survive the evening.

He cleared his throat as she did it again and sipped at a glass of amber liquid as he met her eyes, saying in a warning tone,"We're not training or testing Rey, you don't need to do that."

She just shrugged playfully, scrunching her nose while she grinned at him. Her elbow rested on the bar next to him, supporting her head while she watched his reaction. With a hint of a smirk she said innocently, "I don't know, it just feels rude not to address you properly,  _sir._ "

He chewed the inside of his cheek, trying not to react. "So, uh, you're going to keep doing that, then?"

Her only reaction was to shrug again, her doe-eyes connecting to his while she took another sip from whatever (hopefully non-alcoholic) drink Phasma had handed her a few minutes earlier. "I just don't want to be rude."

Right, sure. That was probably  _exactly_  why she was purposely getting him riled up in public, occasionally letting her hand slip up his thigh. Ben worked his lips together, his gaze traveling over the girl he knew he'd be going home with by the end of the night, and then gave her a quick nod as he clicked his tongue. "Yep, okay," he turned back to the bar for a moment, lifting his now empty glass up, "Bartender? Can I get a refill, please? Maybe a double this time? I think I'm going to need it." Warm breath kissed the palm of his hand, which Rey had grabbed and brought to her lips. "Scratch that. I'm  _definitely_  going to need it."

He heard Rey laugh quietly, and then he nearly jumped as her hand landed on his shoulder, her lips brushing against his ear. "Hey, I'm going to go say hi to Luke. Can you watch my drink?" Before he could respond (though really, given his current state, and how close she'd gotten, his only response would have likely been a groan), she nipped softly at his earlobe, and breathed, " _Sir?_ "

When she pulled away, Ben blinked and took a steadying breath. "Yeah," he choked, "yeah, sure. No problem."

Rey grinned like a crossroads demon, and suddenly he remembered Phasma's words-

 _Can't wait to see how you survive_ that  _relationship, Benji_.

-and he realized he owed the woman a considerable amount of credit, because she'd been completely right.

Speaking of tall, blonde, and bitchy, she'd started cracking up a few stools down from where Ben and Rey had been spending time together, sitting in a little group with Hux and Rose. She'd covered her mouth to keep from making too much noise, but her shoulders shook and the curls she'd been growing in recent months bounced as she laughed. It was a testament to how often this happened or how composed Hux and Rose were that they didn't look even the slightest bit surprised by his or Rey's behavior.

Ben stared at her with wry amusement until she caught her breath, and he asked dryly, "What's so funny?"

"Watching you trying not to lose your shit around Rey," she cackled. "God, that girl knows exactly how to fuck with you. Who knew  _Ben Solo_ would have a kinky side? Honestly, the last ten minutes have been incredible - I've been trying so hard not to laugh but... _shit_ that girl is brilliant."

Ben looked to the second and third parts of the trio, seeking any form of sympathy or, even better, some sort moderating influence on Phasma's overly indulgent chuckles.

"Any help here?" Ben asked helplessly.

Hux just raised his hands in defeat, and Rose rolled her eyes and sent Ben a sweet smile full of arsenic. Her expression was clearly one she'd learned from someone much blonder.

"Sorry man, I just love her," Hux said, proving once again that best friends sucked. "Doesn't mean I can do squat when she gets like this."

Ben turned his stare to Rose, whose smile had turned to something a little more human and a lot less terrifying. "I mean, I'm sure we could do something, but I'm enjoying this far more than Simon and Garfunkel over there."

He looked over to where she was pointing. Poe had somehow gotten about three shots of something not-quite-legal into Finn and now the duo were monopolizing the karaoke machine, murdering and butchering famous pop songs with wholly inappropriate enthusiasm. Since everyone was still well within a few decimal points of legal alcohol impairment, naturally they all agreed that the couple best be left alone and the speakers near this area of the bar had mysteriously and conveniently stopped working.

Ben huffed. "I think I liked it better when you were scared of me."

Rose snorted and raised a glass of something dark. "Yeah, and then you got the man flu and I had to watch Rey nurse you back to health."

She downed the drink and motioned to the bartender for another with the kind of familiarity that told Ben that  _someone_  had been bringing her around here as well. Hux and Phasma were apparently terrible influences on her. Ben seriously asked himself how it was no one bothered to card these idiots and yet he practically needed to plead the fifth any time he so much as grabbed a mixer from the grocery shelf.

Phasma coughed, still in the throes of laughter, before she composed herself. "Alright, alright," she chortled, "Go grab us a booth or something, I'll be along soon."

Once they were alone, Phasma turned to Ben. "So how are things coming along in paradise,  _sir?"_

"It's not funny, Phasma - it's driving me insane," he groused, downing the drink the bartender dropped off to him. He winced and said to the man, "Sorry, you might as well bring me another one."

He turned back to the blonde. "It's one thing when it's in the Dojang, but when she does it socially like that..." He ran a hand through his hair and tried not to notice the sultry look Rey was shooting him from the other side of the bar. "I'm blaming you for this. I swear she wasn't like this before you told her to get in a cage and  _flirt_. I think you rubbed off on her."

Phasma groaned. " _Sure_  I did, Benji. Please, you were so busy kicking your own ass at the time, it took her jumping into your arms for you to realize what you meant to her."

He could feel the tips of his ears start to turn red, whether from the alcohol or the blunt reprisal, he didn't know. "I still say it's your fault," he shot back, more petulantly than necessary.

"Are you complaining?"

"...shut up."

Phasma started laughing again, and quirked her eyebrow at his refreshed drink. "You know getting drunk is just going to make it worse, right?"

Ben rolled his eyes and huffed. "I don't know what else to do, Phas."

"If it were me, I'd ditch the party," she whispered, wagging her eyebrows.

"That's not a bad idea," he chuckled. A moment later, a serious feeling settled over the conversation, maybe just due to the alcohol finally hitting him, and he said quietly, "Does it ever feel like too much, Phas?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, tilting her head. She swung around the bar and plopped onto the stool next to him - the one Rey had been on - giving him her full attention while the world kept spinning around the sun. "Does  _what_  feel like too much?"

A warm, fuzzy feeling that normally accompanied half-a-dozen shots slowly started spreading through his chest, making the words flow out that much easier. "She's- she's fucking perfect and  _adorable_  and she's my best friend and Phas I-" He let out a breath. "It's been almost a year, and sometimes I still can't believe I could be this lucky. And sometimes, when I think about it, I love her so much it hurts, and it makes me wonder how I'd manage if things didn't work out."

Phasma blinked and seem to take a moment to process the jumbled words he'd been spewing. "Are you asking me for relationship advice?  _Again?_ "

"Why is that so surprising?" He shot a glance to where Hux and Rose were huddling close together in one of the booths. The two of them were hovering over Hux's phone, covering their faces as they tried and failed at not laughing at something on the screen. "Out of the two of us, you have a lot more relationship experience than I do. Does it ever get less scary? Loving someone so much?"

"Not really," she sighed. "I think it's always sort of scary. I think that's kind of the point. Loving someone is a risk, and you're always going to be a bit vulnerable when another person has so much control over your happiness."

She paused, and added, "But honestly, I think that's what makes it so great. Look, we both know I'm not the type to get sentimental, but I'm going to say something kinda sappy and then we're never going to mention it again, okay?" The smile returned to her face as she said, "I know you probably feel like there are a million ways you could screw this up and ruin things, but the way she loves you - it's not the kind of love everyone's lucky enough to find, so when you find it... _Ben,_ " she whispered, "you've got to take it."

He nodded slowly for a moment, considering what she'd said, and finally turned back at her. "Is that how it is for you? With Hux-" he paused, his eyes flicking over to notice how closely Rose and Hux sat in their booth, with her head casually resting on his shoulder while his arm wrapped around her. Ben glanced back to Phasma and added softly, "And Rose?"

"You know?" Phasma met his eyes for a moment before she took another sip of her drink. "Yeah, of course you know," she murmured. "Yeah, it is. But…" her voice turned thready with nervousness and lowered until he could barely hear it, "Could we keep that quiet? For a bit longer? I'm the reason we haven't told everyone."

Ben frowned, considering her carefully for a moment before it clicked. "Your family?"

He didn't know many of the details, but at some point, early in their friendship (and over a considerable amount of alcohol), Phasma had told him her family had more or less disowned her, and he'd never really known why, or connected the dots until just now.

"Yeah, I know none of you would ever treat me like that, but-"

"Some scars take a long time to heal?" he offered, knowing the truth of that statement a little too well.

Phasma smiled softly at him, whispering, "Exactly." She hesitated, and quietly admitted, "I think we're going to ask her to move in with us."

He took another look at the subjects of their conversation, and realized it was impossible to miss - the love shared between the three. It was clear in the way Rose laughed at things Hux said, and the way Phasma watched them interact with a smile, and the way Hux would normally speak of either of them. Anyone would have had to be a fool to miss it.

"Wow, Phas," he breathed, "that's great. Really, really great." He took a deep breath, and reached out to rest his hand on hers, tightening it as he said, "It's nice to see you happy. All three of you. And we don't have to talk about it, but none of us are ever going to have a problem with who you love, especially if they make you this happy."

Wet eyes looked up to meet his, and she sniffled softly just before surprising him with a side-hug, muttering, "Jerk. I can't believe you made me cry at a party  _I_  arranged for you, you asshole. Dick."

Ben laughed as she let him go, and gave her an apologetic smile smile as he stood up and finished his drink. "You gonna be okay?"

"I'm fine," Phasma huffed. "Well, if I completely ignore the mess that is our old boss, I'm fine."

He nodded knowingly. "I know what you mean, but...it'll be okay. We'll figure it out."

"Yeah," she said softly. "Yeah, I hope you're right."

Ben gave her another smile and said, "Well, thanks for all of this Phas, but I think you're right. Maybe it's time to uh..." his lips quirked into a bit of a smirk, "Ditch the party."

Phasma snorted, "That's probably a good idea. And don't worry about me," she tilted her head over to the two at the end of the bar. "I'm in good company. Oh, and you and Rey will probably have the place to yourselves tonight," she winked. "Go find her and get out of here before Luke overhears the way she's been addressing you. Unless, of course, you  _want_  to give the poor man a heart attack."

"Good point," he winced. "Alright, see you later Phas, and uh...thanks again."

"Don't mention it," she said softly, giving him a slight wave as he turned to find Rey.

* * *

Rey was chatting up Poe and Finn at the little table they'd grabbed after they got sick of casually executing classic rock hits when she noticed Ben snake his way through the crowd. When he caught sight of her, the intensity of his stare was enough to make her wish they were home already, and she couldn't help but wonder if he'd realized how appealing he'd look when he'd picked out the dark jeans that hugged him perfectly, and a black sweater that left little to the imagination when it came to the sort of muscle definition he sported.

He was  _hot_ , and all hers. There had been something incredibly attractive about seeing him put his fist through eight inches of concrete, and it had almost made her weak in the knees, though she'd always sort of thought that was just a saying. Of course, they'd both been a mess for a few days, as was usual after most senior testings, and their week had been so busy, and-

Long story short, Rey was already regretting dragging him out of the apartment, because she was suddenly realizing they probably would have had a lot more fun if they'd stayed in.

It was like some weird fluke when their eyes met and the music changed to a power ballad, and Rey had to wonder if moments in their lives were doomed to be set to cheesy '80s music. She didn't get long to consider it before Ben swooped in and caught her around the waist, using the loud atmosphere of the room as an excuse to dip his face next to her ear, whispering in a low voice that sent shivers down her spine, "Follow me.  _Now."_

He pulled back to shoot Poe and Finn a friendly, innocent smile as if he hadn't just clearly given her some sort of command, and Rey was sure she'd started blushing.

"We'll be right back," he told them in an apologetic tone, though one look at Poe and Finn said that both she and Ben would be terrible poker players. He tugged her hand and pulled her through a small crowd, leading her toward the back of the bar, to a dark hallway where, surprisingly, there were no people.

Ben turned back to her with a mischievous, dark gaze, and murmured, "This is probably incredibly stupid, but right now it seems like a brilliant idea, so I'm just gonna go with it."

Then, without warning he caught her lips with his, walking her backward and nipping at her lips until he'd backed her fully against the wall behind her. He pressed her against it with his hips, pushing his tongue into her mouth as she moaned, and  _oh_ , she'd known she was affecting him, but she hadn't realized exactly how much until she felt him press against her.

Ben pulled back just far enough to move her a little away from the wall, and she yelped a little in surprise as his hands found her ass, gripping her boldly. She wrapped her arms around his neck and glanced around quickly, confirming nobody was around, then pushed off the ground and let Ben pick her up and wrap her legs around his waist.

His eyes met hers, as he said, "Tell me you're uncomfortable and I'll stop."

She interrupted him, leaned forward to press her lips back to his. He didn't move for a few agonizing seconds, but then suddenly he was everywhere, all around her, all at once. A hand under her hips, holding her up. A hand tangled in her hair. His chest against hers. His hips pressed tightly to her center, and his lips sliding over her. It felt like a supernova was going off in her chest.

_Was every time she kissed him going to feel like this?_

Since it had been nearly a year since she'd first kissed him, Rey guessed the answer to that was  _yes._

It was electric. Everywhere his body met hers felt like a live wire, and Rey had a feeling that if he kept kissing her, she was at risk of dying in his arms.

 _Hell of a way to die,_  she thought.

Eventually, after an eternity, and yet far too quickly, Ben pulled back, catching his breath. His pupils had blown so wide that there was hardly any brown to be found in his eyes, and Rey couldn't take her eyes off them.

"Wow, so, uh. You-" she grinned, "You  _like_  that, huh?'

He stared at her, dumbfounded, for a moment before his lips slowly curved up into a smile. He gave her a soft kiss. "I don't think you'll ever be able to find something I don't like, Rey. Apparently I like everything you do," he murmured. "Did I not make that obvious? I can keep kissing you, if that clears things up."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Just to be sure... _sir._ " She mirrored his smile. Something caught her attention, and when she remembered the song that was playing, she burst into laughter.

" _I just died in your arms tonight;_

_It must have been some kinda kiss."_

"Really?" she giggled, " _This_ is the song that's on when we decide to ditch the party to make out? I feel like we could have done better."

Ben rolled his eyes playfully, and scolded her as the music played, "Don't be such a music snob when I'm trying to kiss you." He leaned in to nip at her neck, and she rested her head against the wall behind her, running her hands through his hair as he marked her skin.

"So bossy."

"Yes," he hummed against her neck, "I am."

"Well, I think maybe you should take me home,  _sir_."

He groaned, then looked up at her, "You're killing me with that, by the way." He caught her lips again, this time in a harsh, bruising kiss as one of his hands held her jaw in place as he worked over her mouth, biting down on her lip almost hard enough to taste blood. He broke away after a moment, running his nose along her chin, pressing kisses to the skin there, as he murmured, "So, we're on the same page? Leaving early?"

"Absolutely," Rey gasped, her voice coming out embarrassingly high as she felt him lick her neck. " _Ben-"_

"I love the way you say my name."

"Something tells me you-" she keened softly as his hips rolled against hers, "will  _definitely_  hear it more tonight."

Ben hummed against her neck. "Why don't we find out. Let's get home, we can continue this there."

" _Fuck,_  she gasped, feeling his teeth drag over her pulse point, "Yes, that sounds perfect."

Ben chuckled, and pulled away to give Rey an absolutely sinful look, "Yes,  _what?"_

If it was possible, Rey blushed even further. She looked at him through thick eyelashes and smirked, replying, "Yes,  _sir._ You have no idea how much I want to-

They froze at the sound of a throat clearing loudly, bursting the little bubble they were in.

"Ben," Luke interrupted, in a cheerful tone that was  _not at all cheerful_ , and more terrifying than anything. Rey watched as an expression of mild horror crossed Ben's face. For some reason, Rey was unphased. If anything, she was just annoyed they'd been interrupted. "I think maybe we need to have a little talk about what is and  _isn't_  appropriate."

Ben swallowed hard and gently placed Rey back on her feet, turning his back to her so he could face Luke.

"Rey," Luke added, "Can you give us a minute?"

 _Yes sir_  really should have been her answer. It should have been. Rey knew that was the case, despite the fact that saying those words would currently make her turn a deep shade of red. Logically, it was still the right answer.

As it turned out, logic just completely flew out the window when her tall, dark, handsome, and broody boyfriend pressed her up against the wall of a bar.

"Wait, why's he the only one getting in trouble?" Rey asked, stepping out from behind Ben. "It's hardly his fault, you know. It's not like I didn't just have my tongue down his throat, and it's not like I wasn't about to drag him off to my apartment and let him-"

"Please don't finish that sentence," Luke interrupted quickly, "You're not in  _trouble_ , you idiots, I just wanted to point out that if you continue as you were, one or both of you might get arrested for public indecency, so I was going to ask you to  _please_  celebrate elsewhere."

"Oh," Rey blushed. "Right."

"And perhaps," Luke groaned, cringing, "You could save certain titles for the Dojang. Or, for in-" he seemed to pale as he muttered, " _private._  For my own sanity. Please."

Ben clapped a hand to his face, probably embarrassed beyond belief, but Rey couldn't help but snort. "Uh, right," she repeated, trying not to laugh, "Sorry si-" she choked on the word and blushed further, unable to stop her laughter. "Oh my God that's so awkward," she breathed. More giggles slipped through her lips as Ben turned to stare at her in horror. "Sorry Luke. So,  _so_  sorry. Uhm. We'll go."

"Please do," he sighed, shaking his head dramatically. "I think you've traumatized me."

Rey laughed again, and said awkwardly, "Sorry. We'll, uh, see you tomorrow for practice."

"And we'll never,  _ever_  speak of this again," Ben muttered.

Luke nodded in Ben's direction, and then gave them an awkward wave as he turned and headed for the bar, and once he was out of earshot, Rey had to bend over, bracing her hands on her knees because she'd started laughing so hard.

"I'm glad you think this is funny," Ben said lowly, turning back to her with an almost sinister tone. He winked, and added, "I don't think you'll be laughing when we get home."

 _That_  stopped her almost immediately, and more shivers shot down her spine, tingling and reminding her of their plans for the rest of the evening. "C'mon," he said, gesturing toward an exit, "Let's get out of here."

She smirked slightly, deciding she needed to get the last word. "Yes,  _sir."_

Ben's steps stuttered, and she watched him swallow hard.

Yeah, this was going to be fun.

* * *

Rey stood in the middle of the small open floor-space in her bedroom, watching Ben with mild confusion. He was leaning against her bed, arms folded over his chest as he stared at her as if she was about to be his next meal. Hopefully she wasn't misreading that.

"Strip."

She blinked, then huffed. "I'm sorry?"

A small smirk spread across his face. "Hey,  _you're_  the one who decided to start calling me  _sir_  in the middle of a bar, so...let's see how well you take orders outside the Dojang." Ben licked his lower lip, eyes traveling down and then back up her body, and he shrugged. "So, strip."

Really, the fact that she'd started blushing was absurd. He'd seen her naked countless times, and realistically, he'd watched her take her clothes off more than once, so the fact that she was suddenly shy was completely-

"I'm waiting, sweetheart." His words and tone were serious, but it was clear that he was struggling to not grin.

Rey bit her lip, and figured  _to hell_  with his little game, so she shrugged, and said, "Okay."

At her words, something dark flashed in his eyes. "Is that how you'd respond to an order?"

"Uh," she hesitated, "No?"

"No,  _what?"_

His little half-smile was back, and she couldn't help but suck in a breath. "No,  _sir."_

It had started as a joke - just a way to make him blush, and it was clear...her words had more of an effect on him than his did on her, and she was determined to prove it. Rey stared him right in the eye as she slowly started unbuttoning the dark blue sweater she'd put on to counteract the oddly chilly summer night.

His eyes focused in on her hands as she started at the top of the sweater, slowly exposing skin and the black tank-top she'd worn underneath. The only light streaming into the room was from the street, and her back was to the windows, so she wasn't entirely sure how much of her he could really see. Her view of him showed that he was staring at her intensely, adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed.

When she reached the last button, she tugged a bit on the sleeves and let it fall to the floor.

"Keep going," he said softly, a light, pleased hum in his tone.

Rey nodded slightly, lifting the bottom hem of the tanktop, dragging it up her body and up over her head. Her hands landed on the skirt's zipper next, and she slid it down, pushing the skirt down over her hips and thighs, letting it pool on the floor at her feet.

She stepped out of it, left only in a somewhat flattering set of bra and underwear, but she had a feeling there was no point in keeping them on. Plus, she didn't feel like waiting for Ben to tell her to take them off, so she made quick work of unhooking the bra, sliding the underwear off, and letting both items join the rest of her clothes in a pile on the floor.

A moment later, Rey was standing straight with her hands on her hips, grinning at him, daring him to keep going with the little game he'd started. Ben hummed, apparently approving of her level of undress, and took the opportunity to start removing his own clothes, quickly and efficiently divesting himself of everything he'd been wearing.

Moonlight reflected off the broad expanse of pale skin she had a view of, and all Rey could think of was  _mine_ , and just how much she wanted to reach out and touch-

"Lay down," he ordered firmly, moving away from the bed as he gestured toward it. "Lay, down, and touch yourself."

Huh. Somehow in almost an entire year of being together, that was something they  _hadn't_  done. She'd never really had to show him how to touch her, and considering the size and dexterity of his fingers,  _why_  would she touch herself when she could have him doing it for her? In fact, she couldn't really remember the last time she'd had to-

"Rey, I gave you an order."

He was using the firm, commanding voice he used during training with just a hint of amusement, and suddenly she realized it was going to be just a tad hard not to blush when she heard him use that voice during future practices. But she sat at the edge of the bed all the same, supporting her weight on her hands, pressed into the mattress behind her, as she slid further back on the bed and glanced over at Ben.

Even though the light was dim, she could see that he'd sat at her desk chair and spun it so he'd be facing her.

A seat with a decent view of the show.

Audience of one.

Rey grinned, knowing damn well he wouldn't be able to keep up his calm and collected facade for long, because when it fell she was going to prove exactly which one of them was in charge, and she reveled at the opportunity.

Rather than wait until he repeated the order, she lifted her legs up, planting her heels on the edge of her mattress, feeling the plush blanket under her feet. She was still sitting up, holding eye contact with him, and she hummed a soft approving noise at the look he gave her when she spread her legs, giving him an unobstructed view.

His gaze had darkened almost immediately, and she watched closely as he drew in a shaky breath, his mouth opening slightly.

And yet, he didn't move forward to join her, though judging by the grip he had on her poor chair, he seemed to hate that fact. Rey snorted. Served him right for thinking he had any ability to boss her around anywhere outside of practice.

Rey made a show out of sucking a few fingers into her mouth, and hey, if she happened to let out a moan when she did so, was that really her fault? She pulled them out of her mouth with a  _pop_ , and reached down to trace slick that had built up at her core up and around her clit, winking at Ben as she did so.

A low rumbling sound came from his direction, and if she hadn't been so turned on by the whole situation, she may have laughed. It was cute, really, that he thought  _he_  was the one in control. It was almost like when they'd been in the cage and he'd thought he could make her get flustered-

_Oh are you trying to make me get all flustered?" she laughed. "That's cute Ben, but I've been touching myself to the thought of you for years so trust me, there's nothing you can say that I haven't already thought of._

The memory gave her an excellent idea - one she nearly cackled at.

"You know," she practically purred, sliding her finger over and around the sensitive nub, "I think about you when I do this. Always have."

Ben was silent, and on closer look, appeared to be working on controlling his breath. Perfect.

"I thought about it all the time," she sighed, moaning softly as she reached further to push two of her fingers inside herself. "How it would feel - your head between my legs, holding me down while I begged you - either to keep going, or to stop, because I was so overwhelmed by how your tongue felt on me."

Rey heard him mutter a swear from his seat, and glanced up to see him fidgeting, gripping the chair tightly. He cleared his throat, and said, "Focus on your clit, sweetheart. Light pressure, but go faster."

"Yes,  _sir._ "

She made a point to say it that time, and heard Ben take in a quick breath. With a slight grin, she did as he said, and whispered, "I also thought about how you'd feel in me. Maybe you haven't noticed it, but I've got a vibrator in my nightstand," she mentioned casually, "I imagined it was you every time I used it. It didn't prepare me for the real thing, though."

Less than a second after she'd said it he was up off the chair, and he yanked open the nightstand drawer to pull out the toy. It was small, but did the trick, and embarrassingly enough, Phasma (of all people) had bought it for her as what Rey could only imagine was a prank gift. She was pretty sure she turned bright red as she watched Ben handle the thing, scoffing at it.

"You're kidding, right?" he said dryly. "This is  _tiny_."

"Then why don't you give me something better to work with,  _sir?"_  she suggested lowly, stopping the movements of her hand to crook a finger at him, gesturing for him to join her.

Ben turned and quirked an eyebrow at her, still holding it, and said, "I think I've got a better idea." He held it out to her, and ordered, "Show me how you use it."

It wasn't a terrible idea, but hers was much better. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather just have me yourself? I'm already  _so_  wet... _so_  ready for you." There was a stutter in his movements and he gave her this  _look_  that made it abundantly clear he was dying to go with her suggestion, so she smiled sweetly at him and added in a soft voice, "Just think of how good I'd feel around you, tightening around you when I come..."

He took one more look at the little thing in his hands before tossing it back on her nightstand. After that, it took him  _maybe_  two seconds to close the distance between them.

Self-control?

Apparently that particular tenet didn't apply to  _every_  aspect of his life.

He stood in front of her and stared down for a moment while she continued sliding light circles around her clit, and he  _finally_  leaned over her, catching her lips in a fierce kiss while his hard cock bumped against her center. When he started pushing into her, she enacted her plan.

Rey slid back on the bed, further away from him, and grinned as she ordered, "Lay down."

It was his turn to seem confused. His brow furrowed, probably wondering why she'd backed away just as he'd been about to-

"I said  _lay down_ ," she repeated firmly, quirking an eyebrow, daring him to say  _no_.

But he didn't say  _no_. Instead, he blinked, and did as she'd ordered, climbing up on the bed to lay on the side that was normally hers, glancing over at her to watch her movements. Rey sighed happily as she put her hands on his stomach, moving to straddle him in one fluid motion, sliding down onto his cock slowly, basking in the way he groaned.

Once she'd taken him fully, moaning at the delicious, full feeling, she rolled her hips a few times and breathed, "Don't think, for a  _second_ , that you're the one in charge here."

" _Fuck,"_  he muttered, grabbing her hips in a clear attempt to roll them over, "Nice try, sweetheart, but-"

Rey wasn't entirely sure what made her do it, but instinct took over and suddenly she was leaning over him, a hand at his throat while she growled, "Don't even think about it," just before dropping her head down to bite down on his lower lip while she continued to ride him.

He froze for a moment, and then something must have set him off, because suddenly his hands were gripping her hips more tightly, fingers splayed over her ass as she bit at him feverishly, around his jaw and shoulder while she left a hand with barely any pressure - just the  _threat_  of it - at his neck.

His hands on her helped speed up her movements, and Ben let his head rest back on her pillow as she nipped and sucked at his pale skin, shuddering against him as she felt pressure building like a wave. Leaving one last hard bite on his shoulder, forcing a groan from his mouth, she sat back for a different angle, keeping the hand at his neck.

There was no question that he could still flip them over if he felt like it. He could knock her hand away with barely a move and she'd be entirely at his mercy, but Rey knew undoubtedly that he wasn't going to.

Ben Solo,  _Master_  and, in the past,  _Chosen One_ , had submitted to  _her_ , and Rey delighted in the knowledge of that, rewarding him over and over as she clenched around him and rolled her hips. Her name left his lips as he grabbed at her, using his other hand to reach between them and circle her clit.

"Yes," she breathed, nodding as she closed her eyes and continued grinding down on him, " _Yes,_  Ben, just like that."

Thanks to his normally-dominant tendencies, she'd never really gotten to finish like this, and as she leaned back a bit, the angle of him in her became overwhelming, making her shake a little, especially since Ben was gliding two fingers over her, up and down and circling and-

The wave of pressure that had been building swelled, and she let out a shaky breath, "Ben, I'm- I'm going to-"

"Please come," he gasped, and by his tone, she finally realized just how close he was. "Please, sweetheart, I need you to come for me."

Moments later, she came with a string of swears and a stuttering of her hips and she leaned down over him as her breath came in a series of short gasps. Her orgasm was only prolonged when Ben let out a low moan, and she felt him pulse and spill inside her.

Her hand moved from his neck to the pillow next to her head, bracing some of her weight over him as she panted, still coming down from her high. For some reason her head was spinning, and she still hadn't caught her breath.

When she finally opened her eyes, she was staring down into wide brown eyes that had been staring up at her for an undetermined amount of time.

"Wow," he breathed. "That was…"

Rey knew she was probably flushed from their activities, but she probably got a bit more red at the way he was looking at her. "Oh?" she asked coyly.

"Yeah," Ben nodded. "I mean-" he seemed to be floundering, searching for the words, but settled on, "I mean,  _fuck_ , Rey, where the hell did that come from?"

She couldn't help but grin as she sat back up, still on him, and she said, "You realize you've  _never_  let me stay on top the whole time, right?" She thought about it for a moment, and corrected herself, "Well, unless you could the first time, but I wasn't really the one in control. But, yeah," she shrugged, "I never get to be in control."

Ben blinked a couple of times and huffed. "Yeah, well, that's definitely going to change."

Her grin grew into a fully-fledged smile. "Good."

He let out a laugh and finally rolled her off him so they were laying side-by-side, and strong arms tightened around her, pulling her closed as he pressed his lips to hers gently. "You know how much I love and trust you, right?" he murmured against her skin.

Rey pulled back a little, and glanced at him curiously. "Of course I do." She smiled softly, and said, "Just like I love and trust you."

"Good," Ben sighed, kissing her forehead. He was silent for a moment, and then muttered, "Yeah, we're doing that again sometime.  _Soon._ "

She couldn't help but laugh.

* * *

Rey was in a perfect, peaceful lull of warm, half-sleep as sunlight pricked at her eyelids. She yawned widely, stretching her limbs and was promptly obstructed by the giant heater of a man who was wrapped tightly around her.

Well, that really wasn't something she'd ever complain about.  _Ever_.

She was about to roll over and snuggle further against him when something pounced on her stomach, forcing a soft  _oof_  from her mouth. Beebee had apparently decided to take advantage of the fact that she'd left her bedroom door open overnight, and was now kneading Rey's stomach, claws out.

"Ouch! Beebee!" Rey whispered, trying to scold the little pest. He was cute, but whenever Ben was over they tended to use a light blanket instead of her heavy comforter, and while that worked temperature-wise, the thin blanket was failing miserably as a shield against cat claws.

Ben grumbled quietly in his sleep and seemed to be trying to roll her over to face him rather than letting her lay on her back, but instead, Beebee decided to switch gears, purring as he nuzzled into the large arm that had been slung over Rey's waist. She finally shooed the little cat away and turned, burying her face in Ben's shoulder, reveling in the feel of his bare chest against her own.

Her eyes flicked up to his face, and she couldn't help but realize how much younger he looked now than he'd seemed just a year earlier. The scar on his face would almost definitely always be there, but it was faded, just like most of the other scars he bore. She hadn't really had to ask, but she'd noticed not long after their first night together that his skin was covered in marks.

Snoke had done quite the number on him, both mentally and physically, and while Ben was strong and large enough to pick her up and protect her with ease, she couldn't help but feel that...maybe, sometimes he was the one who needed protecting. Protecting from the memories, the dreams, and the scars.

Rey reached up at traced over the line on his face lightly, with a single finger, and almost jumped as he murmured, "You done staring?"

His voice was thick from sleep, but he still sounded a little amused.

"Never."

Ben cracked an eye open, and the corners of his mouth twisted up a little into a lazy smile. "Good morning, sweetheart," he said groggily. "Sleep okay?"

"Before Beebee?" she snorted, "Yeah, you?"

His grin grew bigger, and he tightened his grip around her, pulling her flush against his front while he nuzzled his face into her neck, humming contentedly. "Perfect. Want to get breakfast with me before I go to the garage? I promised I'd help out for a few hours before afternoon lessons start at the Dojang."

Part of her didn't want to get out of bed. Hell, part of her didn't even want to leave his arms any time soon, but before she could suggest that, her stomach started growling, earning a quiet laugh from Ben.

He pulled back and kissed her nose, "C'mon, sweetheart. Are you really going to say  _no_  to breakfast at the diner?"

Rey pretended to consider it for a moment, and he must have gotten impatient, because he started tickling at her abdomen, wiggling his fingers against her, unrelenting until she was squirming and gasping for breath between gasps. In all her struggling to get away from him, she got a bit closer to the edge of the bed than she'd thought, and she nearly fell off, floundering to grip on to something.

Ben caught her, of course, with a quick arm around her hips. He'd sat up, and pulled her right across his lap, holding her close while he grinned and kissed her cheek. "I've got you, Rey."

"I almost fell off the bed from your tickling," she muttered, though it was likely clear from her expression that she wasn't actually upset about it.

He shook his head. "Nope. I never would have let you fall."

"Well, I fell for you, didn't I?"

Ben paused, quirking an eyebrow at her before he let his head fall back in laughter. "Oh," he laughed, "That was smooth. Very nice. Not at  _all_  cheesy."

Rey smacked him with a pillow.

* * *

After nearly a year of being with Rey, Ben was a little surprised at the things he found himself looking forward to. His favorite things to do with her weren't the things he'd expected.

Well. Obviously he  _loved_  having sex with her. That went without saying.

But the things he craved...the things he really,  _really_  missed when he stayed at the Dojang, were the little things.

The way he'd toss and turn in the middle of the night, separated from her during sleep, only to find her and wrap around her, ensuring the rest of his sleep would be deeper and more restful. The way she'd wake up a little before him and get impatient waiting for him to wake up, then pretend she wasn't trying to wake up him while she made little noises or movements. The way he'd regularly have to lift her right out of bed since she was nearly impossible to motivate in the mornings (short of offering her breakfast). The way they shared every single morning shower they took whenever he'd stay over.

Rey let him wash her hair. He'd never realized how shockingly intimate such a simple act could be, but just working shampoo through her hair while she closed her eyes and relaxed gave him chills. She'd do the same for him, though she had considerably more trouble reaching, and he lived for every little touch of her fingers against any part of him.

Love was a hell of a drug, and he was completely addicted to her.

"Hey, you ready to go?"

Ben snapped out of his thoughts and stared at her blankly for a moment. He'd been leaning against the doorframe to her bedroom while she finished dressing for work. The diner was open again, though possibly temporarily, and many waitresses had left for more reliable work, so she and Phasma were grabbing as many shifts as they could. That was one of  _many_  concerning issues, and it meant neither Rey nor Phasma had much of a reliable income for the time being.

"Yeah," he said softly, not bothering to hide how he let his eyes travel down her uniform. She'd gotten a slightly different outfit at some point in the past few months. It fit her a bit better (though, he hadn't complained for a second about how her last one had been a tad tight), and seemed a little more comfortable, though it still fit the required high-waisted shorts and collared shirt combo.

He still needed to buy Maz flowers or something as a thank-you for that uniform.

Rey grinned at him, probably knowing exactly why he was staring, and tugged a black cardigan on over the button up shirt. It had been a little chilly for summer so far, and he'd thrown on a long-sleeved shirt himself (in gray; he was trying to branch out a bit). When she walked over to him he offered his arm, and she laughed a little before taking it and following his lead out of the apartment.

It was a perfect morning.

Couldn't have been better, really.

At least, until he caught sight of the pink paper taped to the outside of her door as they stopped to lock the apartment. Ben knew what it was almost immediately, and his heart dropped into his stomach. Especially since Rey just frowned and tugged it off curiously.

"Uh, Rey-"

He could tell exactly when she figured it out, because her mouth fell open a little and her gaze flicked between the paper she held and the door.

"I- I don't-"

Shit. Shit shit shit shit-

"It's okay," he said calmly, gently holding her shoulders. "Rey, don't worry, it's going to be fine. We'll figure something out."

She just stood there blinking, and he cursed Snoke - because, somehow Ben  _knew_  he was somehow involved or to blame - for all the things he'd managed to take from this girl, whether he realized it or not.

"I have to tell Rose," she finally breathed.

Before Ben got a chance to calm her down a bit, she'd shot past him, running up to Hux and Phasma's apartment. She was already pounding on the door by the time he'd gone up a single flight of stairs.

After a moment, Hux yanked open the door, and Ben got to the landing just in time to see his friend in plaid pajama pants and a t-shirt, his arms crossed in confusion as Rey demanded, "Hux I need to speak to Rose, is she here?"

"Uh, good morning to you too…"

"Sorry," Rey snapped, "But is she here?"

Hux glanced over at him, and Ben did his best to shoot him an apologetic, but serious look. Rey may have been panicking and possibly a little rude, but she had reason to be freaking out.

He shrugged, "Well, yeah-" he turned back to his apartment and called, "Hey, Rose, can you come here for a minute?"

Thirty seconds later, Rose nearly bounced over to them, but froze the moment she saw Rey's stormy expression. "Hey guys," she said cautiously, "Uhm, what's going on?"

Ben looked to Rey, and his heart hurt as he watched her choke out the words, "We're being evicted. This-" she waved the paper around in Rose's direction, "This says we have a week to move out."

* * *

When Rose asked to come along and stay in the audience for a practice, Rey had jumped at the chance.

Summer had danced into their lives like a man going through a midlife crisis; loudly and embarrassingly. After getting effectively kicked out of their apartment, the girls hadn't spent that much time together, with Rey now living a distance that seemed inconveniently far from their old place and Rose moving in upstairs, helping Phasma and Hux from not spiralling.

Leia, bless that woman, had called Rey and given her a choice as soon as she'd heard the news; move in with her (at least until this mess with Snoke was sorted out) or risk not finding a reasonable apartment in time. Rey had been a little hesitant at first, before she realized that even in spite of everything she'd learned, Ben and Leia were actively working to put matters to rest. The least Rey could do was accept the kindness that Leia had no reason to keep offering (it wasn't exactly like Rey had expected Leia to cover all her living expenses forever after all). And so, she'd moved into a guest room at her boyfriend's mom's.

It was an adjustment.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not really considering the word-of-mouth talk Rey knew Holdo had been spreading around the local schools, Luke actually gained a few new students after their last promotion. Apparently seeing a guy break through four two-inch slabs of cement qualified as something  _cool_  and not  _terrifying_  which just proved to Rey that most teenagers didn't have a damn lick of sense.

Still, temporarily bolstered by these new additions, Luke had decided to split his classes, at least temporarily, and to give both Ben and Phasma some time to adjust to a brand new group of white belts without the added pressure of supporting higher belts at the same time. The lower ranked students were set to practice mid-afternoon on Saturdays so as to best accommodate everyone's busy schedules and so the lower belts wouldn't feel discouraged by waking up early on the weekend like Rey once had.

There were sitting in the audience, watching Ben lead the group of ten white belts through proper stances and chambering techniques. Luke had asked Rey to come by later, but Rey had taken the opportunity to come earlier and ogle her boyfriend while he taught what was essentially a class of kids.

Seeing Ben smile softly and gently move amongst the fairly wild group of students, correcting small mistakes here and there, trading jests with the more daring of them, all while he wore his fairly spotless dobok and looked and acted every part the teacher he'd once wished to be, brought up a warm feeling in her.

"You know," Rose said, looking around at the Dojang. "I know I left, like, years ago, and I didn't really get all that far, but I still feel the need to bow when I walk inside and stuff. It's really weird."

Rey smiled. "You know you can always pick it back up whenever you feel like it."

It'd be fun to have Rose in the Dojang again. A bit odd, considering the rank difference, but Rey imagined it'd be nice to have someone her age who didn't give her those bewildered looks so many often did whenever they saw her do something even remotely challenging. After her talk with Callum during their previous promotion, it seemed like some sort of signal or communique was spread that she wasn't aware of because suddenly Rey found herself constantly stopping her own practice to help the others.

She could have just imagined what her younger self would have said about that, and yet, she found herself enjoying helping Callum with his poomse or even the recently promoted orange belts with their one-step techniques.

Rose shook her head frantically. "Uh, no offense Rey, but I remember how tired I used to get afterwards and I like not having to wake up at seven on a Saturday anymore."

"Wimp."

"Sane," Rose corrected. She did another look-see around the Dojang, before she opened her backpack and took out a dark, flat-looking device with a small LED-lit logo on one corner and a convention's worth of stickers over the entire thing. "Do you know the Wifi password for this place by the way? I need to get some stuff typed up for the internship position I told you about."

Rey snorted. "Seriously? After all this time? You've seen Master Luke's phone. You've seen the kind of TV he keeps upstairs. Do you really think the guy even knows what Wifi  _is_?"

It had made doing homework a bit of a pain when she still lived with him, but truth be told that had been on the bottom of her list of worries at the time.

Rose jabbed a nose in Rey's face, her face pouting in the kind of disapproval only a techie could express when confronted with the black hole of technology that was Luke's dojang. "It's your responsibility to educate him in the wonders of the internet then."

"Because that would go  _so_  well," Rey giggled. "He'd probably go on some really old forum about martial arts and start lecturing people on how to treat others when they start insulting each other."

Rose's attention flickered behind Rey, eyes widening. "Hi Master Luke," she said, in what was clearly meant to be a pleasant and innocent tone.

Rolling her eyes, Rey let out an unladylike snort. "Really Rose? You really think I'm going to fall for that? We both know Luke's in his office." She gestured to the closed door on the other side of the room, through which she could see the faint movements of shadow from the light that crept out underneath the bottom.

"Oh am I, Miss Kenobi?" Came the blunt and amused voice of Luke Skywalker, who most definitely was not in his office where he should have been.

Rey suppressed her first, second, and third instincts, all of which would have been some variation or incantation of  _Fuck_. Instead, after swallowing about every single one of her internal organs, Rey turned around in her seat, which she'd positioned to face away from the entrance, and saw her stern-looking grandmaster.

Rey blinked, taking in the sight. He was wearing casual clothes again, and the sight was still somewhat odd to her, even years after living with him. He had on a bright purple and blue hawaiian shirt - a gag gift that she'd gotten him one year for his birthday that, to her horror, he took every opportunity to wear unabashedly - and what looked like crocs on his feet, which was just an absolute schism of an image to process.

Seeing where her eyes were staring, Luke lifted his foot to show off the abnormalities. "You like 'em?" he asked unironically. "Amilyn got them for me. Said they'd be comfortable and something I'd like, wouldn't you know it, they are."

Rey mad a noise that could only charitable have been translated to, "Guh."

Six years of learning from the man and he was still sneaking up on her. There was just something patently unfair with the world.

Luke laughed, seeming to intuit the reason for her sudden case of muteness.

"I've still got some tricks left to teach you, kid," he said, chuckling and looking so much lighter outside of his dobok than Rey had possibly ever seen him in. He pointed to the gathered group before them. "First one is to never assume someone isn't watching."

Ben caught Luke's eye and waved, but didn't otherwise move or distract from his current work with a particularly wobbly teen with long spindly arms and unfortunately compromised balance. Rey watched as Ben held the kid against the wall, talking low, helping the boy learn proper chambering technique by making him hug the wall so as to not overcompensate to one side too much.

Seeing Ben like this, freely teaching the introductory group, jerked something loose in Rey, something she didn't know if she was ready for. The realization that someday, Luke wouldn't be with them. That someday, assuming things with Snoke didn't go south, the sight before her would be an actual regular occurrence and not just a special occasion.

The notion felt a swift and precise kick, angled upward at just enough of an angle to dig under her ribs and spike her diaphragm. Rey didn't so much as choke at the idea, as she did unconsciously seek out the closest chair to stabilize herself because  _oof_.

"Where's uh," Rey shook her head, clearing cobwebs of worry and rat tunnels of concern, "where's Phasma?"

The door to the office opened then, and out stepped out Phasma. She was wearing her dobok, and had assumed a kind of resting face draconic in its patience and threat. The class quieted, seeing her exit, and right behind her followed two men.

One was short, of Korean descent if not in origin. He had a lightly burned skin tone, reminding Rey of those people who spent a lot of their time out in the sun, whether from work, hobby, or both. Dark, short cropped hair, and quick fleeting eyes scanned the entire room within the wing flap of a hummingbird. He wore a navy blazer, and sharp tailored business pants in the same hue, unbuttoned, but only because the man probably preferred the free range of movement it provided him.

The second man took Rey a moment to place, that is, until she imagined him with a slightly less crooked nose and no hair.

And then suddenly she couldn't not see the face of the man who she and Phasma had taken down together the night of the fight club burning. Small, intelligent eyes surveyed the room just like the previous man on his entry did, but it didn't stop there. They skittered between various points in the room, specifically the empty spot in the ceiling tiles exposing the inner guts of the building overhead, and the missing panel in the mirror wall, which had had to come down due to water damage in the wall holding it up.

"What the  _hell_  is he doing here?" someone said. It took Rey a second to realize it'd been her because part of her was still so shocked to actually see that man again. It would have been less shocking to see Snoke, because on some level Rey recognized that Snoke at least had some importance to the dojang. Not this no-name who'd almost broken her face in.

Ben noticed the group that left the office, and credit to him, he didn't so much as blink an eye at the man, even if Rey was absolutely positive he could recognize one of Snoke's men by smell alone, considering how much time he spent in the company of those people. Pretty evil and cruelty had a stench no musk could guard or cover up.

Phasma and the two men stood to the side, and though she could couldn't make out the exact specifics of what she was saying, Rey could see that she was talking with the men in what was probably a reasonable tone of voice. One far more controlled and reasonable than the hissing, spitting, and frothing she-demon that Phasma was almost assuredly using internally.

With summary roundup and subsequent dismissal, the white belt class ended. The various students broke off, each falling down the gender line and filing in to the locker rooms one by one. Ben hadn't recommended they stay back to practice on stuff.

Rey waited until the last of the white belts had crossed the threshold into the hallway that led to the two locker rooms, before she crossed the floor and stood side-by-side with Ben, facing the two strangers in conjunction with Phasma.

"Is this the girl?" asked the olive-skinned man - the one Rey had never seen before. He spoke with the kind of rushed and dismissive tone of someone who wouldn't believe his own mother if she said the sky was blue unless she provided six different verified sources.

Rey at least congratulated herself in reading the mood well enough to recognize the many, many waves of  _don't touch me_  that Ben was exuding, even if she could tell that he would like nothing but. She inhaled, looked at Snoke's crony straight in the eye, and bowed to them, hating herself and even hating Taekwondo for making her expose her necks to these vultures.

"Good afternoon," she said instead. She even managed to inject a bit of demureness in there because why the fuck not. "I'm Rey Kenobi. It is a pleasure to meet you Mister..."

The stranger looked her up and down, and Rey could see that he'd already written her off as irrelevant without having even heard more than four syllables from him. She wasn't a person to him. She was an inconvenience. One that convention demanded he address for the sake of protocol.

With an insultingly brief nod that could  _maybe_  have been construed as a bow, if one were feeling generous and perhaps a bit inebriated, the man then said, "Grandmaster Shin Kyung." Then, because apparently that was too much human emotion for his apathetic demeanor, he said, "Is this the girl who sparked this investigation?"

Rey was aware of Luke stepping up beside her. There was something tight and controlled about the way he smiled and also bowed - properly, Rey's decidedly offended mind supplied, none of that nodding crap. "It's good to see you Grandmaster Kyung," Luke said amiably, even if every uttered word told Rey the exact opposite. "I hope the trip wasn't too stressful for you. I wasn't aware that you were getting here so early..."

Kyung spared Luke a mountain's worth more respect than he did Rey, and he did this by turning his head to meet the man and blink. There was a funny little smile on his face and one that Rey very much did not like. "I was planning on visiting the area when I was told of the inquiry. The federation was kind enough to supplement my budget and cover my accomodations."

"How kind of them," Luke said in the kind of tone one used when talking down a man with a knife to his neck.

"Indeed," Kyung agreed, still with that funny little smile made of razor blades and tripwires. "So is this the girl all this fuss has been raised about?"

Rey bristled, getting a little sick of being treated like an oversized and garish looking lawn ornament. It was only the sharp intake of breath by Phasma and the increased tension in Ben's body language that stopped Rey from letting loose with the first word that probably would have made the conversation swerve about a hundred degrees south in an instant.

"This is Rey Kenobi, yes," Luke said, putting a calming hand on Rey's shoulder. "She's currently one of our black belts here."

Kyung didn't say anything. He just let his flinty stare stare at all of them and none of them at the same time. There was no warmth to be found in his face, no heat, nothing except the empty and pitiless logic of a man who didn't want to be there and just wanted to get things done with so he could get back to more important things, like staring at a wall in the middle of a dark room.

Snoke's man - Rey decided to dub him Jackass, Jack for short - took the initiative this time. He'd let his hair grow out from the bald do from when she'd last seen him. He stepped forward, hands gathered in front like some pious servant, and nodded to Rey. "This is the girl, Grandmaster Kyung," he said. There was a strange quality to his voice, something that didn't fit with the rest of the image, but Rey dismissed that, and focused on what he was saying instead. "Our master has recently come to learn of some troubling news regarding her training and-"

"Yes, yes," Kyung dismissed the man as if he were a fly. "I know the story. I was briefed when I accepted the offer to come out here." Cold eyes zeroed in on Rey and she just knew he wasn't actually looking at her, but instead balancing pluses and minuses and numbers that she couldn't even comprehend behind those eyes. "You are aware of the investigation being launched on your behalf by Grandmaster Alistair Snoke, yes?"

"On my behalf?" Rey repeated back, feeling a little faint, a little sick, and a little pissed off to make a very seething mixture that was rapidly approaching explosivity the longer it brewed. "This investigation is being launched on  _my behalf_?"

Kyung didn't say anything, but she got the impression he was not pleased with having to hear the same set of words over and over, as if the amount of words that could be spoken in a lifetime were finite and she was just wasting hers.

She didn't care. It galled and insulted her, on a personal level, to hear that Snoke was organizing this supposed investigation  _on her behalf._

"We have a responsibility to ensure fair and unbiased instruction is happening at this dojang," Kyung said, as if speaking to a very slow child. "Recent evidence has arisen and was presented to the organization that several actions taken by various members of this institution have been potentially damaging to the Taekwondo community as a whole. While nothing has been determined, we may eventually work with local law enforcement on uncovering the truth, should any parties prove difficult to cooperate."

The words made her want to gag.

"I came today to inform you, and Grandmaster's Snoke representative, as he couldn't be here himself, that the investigation will begin this coming week," Kyung spoke. It was as if he didn't have his fingers under the gameboard of their lives and as if he  _wasn't_ actually threatening to flip it over. "I've established the expectations with Master Gwendoline Phasma here, in light of your absence earlier, Grandmaster Skywalker."

Kyung's eyes settled on Luke's crocs, and if Rey hadn't been watching she wouldn't have noticed the slight flare of his nostrils, as if something vile had crossed his path.

"We will be in touch," Kyung ended on. He looked between the four of them, and reluctantly the four of them parted. Kyung and Jack walked past them, neither sparing the members of the dojang much of a glance other than Jack smiling a bit too friendly in Phasma's direction.

They trod across the wooden floor, Kyung at least taking care not to step too harshly on the wooden floor in his elegant and ebony dress shoes. Rose moved out of the way, seeing them approach, her stare firmly on Snoke's employee who, when Kyung wasn't looking, made an incredibly rude hand gesture in her direction, sparking an absolutely hellish sounding growl to crawl from the back of Phasma's throat at the sight.

Kyung snapped in place to look back at them immediately, eyes switching between Jack and their group, trying to identify the distinct bad blood as if by some inhuman instinct.

Seeing nothing, he continued his exit. When he got to the door of the dojang, the man took a deep breath - one that seemed to last for several seasons, and he bowed, low and fully bent at the waist, showing more respect for the goddamn building than he had to each of them combined. He straightened, adjusted his collar, and about-faced. The bells on the door didn't so much as jingle as they did sing the man's departure.

Jack did the same, if a little more sloppily, and it was clear he was only giving the effort because Kyung was close by.

As soon as the muffling, almost hydraulic-like sound of the door sliding into place came, Phasma cursed a vicious, bloodthirsty curse, and headed to Rose, who looked shaken.

"Master Luke?" Rey asked, feeling cold and clammy and very afraid for the future of her family. "Who was that?"

Luke sighed, and suddenly Ben was right there, one arm wrapped around her, half-hovering over her, as if to protect her from the reality of the situation. "That, Rey, was the absolute worst man they could have gotten for the investigation."

Ben rubbed Rey's shoulder, trying to warm against the chill that had probably taken them both. "Is he one of Snoke's?" Ben asked.

Luke grimaced and look to the direction of the exit. "Worse. He's unbiased."

Rey blinked. "How's that worse? Wouldn't that mean he's on our side in this?"

"The mistake you're making, kid, is thinking there are sides to this." Luke rubbed his chin, beard catching a little on his finger as he did so. He looked a lot more scraggly than Rey had first seen him so many years ago. A lot more tired. "Kyung's a hardliner. He and Snoke get along, but that's only because they both won't compromise on their views of martial arts. Kyung's views are a lot more in line with our own, but the guy has absolutely no patience for anything even remotely approaching the things we've pulled."

Luke met Rey's stare. "I can guarantee you kid, that if he'd been your teacher when you attacked Jess and Poe, you wouldn't be able to say the world 'belt' before he'd have you stripped and banned for misusing your training. That's not even getting into the crap we've  _all_  done."

"He didn't really seem to like you that much." Ben noted, and Rey huddled in close, seeking his body heat instinctively. There were benefits to having a living furnace for a boyfriend.

"Kyung's older than me by about ten years, and he was part of the group that looked into things surrounding  _The Death Star_  thirty years ago." Luke quirked his lips. "I may have also said some things about his mother too, when I thought he was being a stick in the mud."

Ben blinked and his lips curved into a wan smile. "It really says a lot about him then, that  _you're_ the one calling him that."

"I really  _can_  still make you do push-ups until you pass out, you cheeky punk."

Ben nodded, completely unconvinced. "And I eagerly await the day you do, sir."

The two family members stared at each other, and Rey had to roll her eyes at how very testosterone-driven these two idiots were, when instead of just saying "I'm glad you're okay" like a normal person they default to cheap jibes like a pair of sitcom characters.

"Still," Ben started, and then bit the inside of his cheek. "This complicates things for us, Uncle Luke. If the person they'd send had been a friend of Snoke's, we could maybe have appealed if things didn't turn out favorably. If Kyung's as thorough as you say..."

"We've got to be absolutely sure about being above-board for the foreseeable future Ben." Luke looked pained. "We don't have the same resources we did at the start of this whole mess, and Snoke's still got enough cannons pointed our way we can't afford a misstep."

"Why don't we just get him caught for tax fraud then, like he did for Leia?" Rey asked, frustrated and angry at the situation and perhaps even more so at how there wasn't any good way to release her anger. At least, not as long as Snoke was still involved.

"Thought of that. Can't."

"Why not?" Rey protested. "You saw the scale of that place, Luke. You can't tell me you honestly think it was completely above board. Places like that don't just pop-up out of nowhere."

"The issue isn't launching an investigation," Luke explained, still the everwise patient master, "The problem is what happens afterwards. You think Snoke would just take something like that lying down? You don't think his 'friends'-" Luke made air quotes with his fingers, "-wouldn't have something to say about that? No, the problem with going after Snoke is that the man is squirrelly. He's got so many power bases the only way we'd get anything to stick to him would be to hit him everywhere at once."

They were moving into Luke's office. Luke did a cursory glance of the room, nodded, and sat behind his desk. It was odd how unfamiliar that sight seemed with him in his bright blue and purple hawaiian shirt and his cargo shorts.

"At best, we'd have to make a three-prong strike," Luke said, leaning forward in his chair, and rubbing his temples. He extended a hand with three fingers extended and started counting them off.

"First, we've got his finances. Snoke's had years and means to accommodate an small fortune that he has shown he feels perfectly comfortable tossing around. I'm not sure how much of the guy's capital is tied up in assets, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's got a briefcase under his bed full of cash, ready to just buy this place out from underneath me as soon as I so much as hint that I'll sell."

Luke reached under his desk and opened the mini-fridge, taking out a couple of bottles of waters, extending them to both Ben and Rey who took the proffered items without protest.

"Second, are the guy's connections. Honestly, this part is what scares me the most," Luke bluntly stated. "Money's useful, but just knowing the right - or wrong, in this case - people, can make or break so many things. If we go after his finances, you can bet one of his friends will intervent somehow and avert or at least entangle the entire investigation that it'll be a moot point by the time it's done."

"Last, there's the man's reputation."

Rey's brow furrowed, as she tried to follow along this unexpected but not unwelcome insight into their enemy. "Reputation?"

"It's simultaneously the least and most dangerous thing about him." Luke grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and instead of drinking pressed it against the back of his neck. "Least, because even without his reputation Snoke is a frighteningly powerful man who doesn't like us, and would probably be able to ruin a normal person's life if he so wished. The only reason we've lasted so long is because of my sister and this damn building."

Rey startled at the swear. Sure it was mild, and sure she'd suspected that the place hadn't always had the best memories for him, but she'd never heard him outwardly curse it. One traded look with Ben told her that he was thinking much along the same lines she was.

"It's his most dangerous source of power though," Luke mused, and once again he donned that wistful and regretful look, and Rey somehow knew that he was thinking back to his father, to the horrors of back then, "because it's what Snoke puts the most value in. Make no mistake, kids, Snoke's a talented fighter, but he's cultivated an underground theme of power and eminence that no normal criminal could. He's charismatic, ambitious, and he truly believes his way is right. He's not just an opportunist scrapping his way to the top - he honestly believes in the things he does."

With that said, Luke closed his eyes and rested his head against his hands, the bottle of water turning warm, the yawning mouth of summer threatening to be their last within the wooden building which was starting to seem so very not worth it to Rey.

Not if it meant the people she loved should look so sad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A date and a road taken.
> 
> WRITER'S NOTE:
> 
> Attack: We're getting close to the end, and we might have a bit of a reprieve in the next chapter, but things are going to start getting heavy as we wrap up the main fic. Obviously we entirely failed to stick to the planned update schedule, but we are trying to get back to it.
> 
> Onfire: Ramping up to the finish line here! Dropped some hints about what's going to happen here and there...also, I loved writing Ben's break. He's always been an interesting dichotomy since most people normally have problems with the physical aspect of martial arts, whereas Ben has always had difficulty with the more ephemeral aspects.
> 
> Please note: Kyung is a completely fictional character. I literally just went to a name generator and I'm not even sure it means anything. So don't go thinking he's based on anyone actually real.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	50. Black Belt Eighth Stripe, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're officially over 400K words! _Holy shit, why?_
> 
> Please see [THIS MASTER POST](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/180056645297/beautiful-calligraphy-courtesy-of) for all fan art and playlists.

The cool breezes that had been left from Spring finally gave way to Summer's expected heat, and as Ben stepped out of one of the Dojang showers post-practice, after all the students had left, he started desperately wishing the place had reliable air conditioning. Maybe that's something he'd add to it, someday, when they'd grown their customer base and were making a bit more of a profit, and-

It hit him suddenly then, how easily he'd fallen into the role. Into the mindset of running the Dojang rather than just helping out.

Exactly when had that happened?

Ben was no fool. It was abundantly clear - at least to him and Phasma - that Luke had taken a bit of a step back. More of a step back than Ben had been expecting, especially so soon after his promotion.

But he hadn't expected it to feel so natural. He hadn't expected to feel so much like himself as he walked through rows of students, making adjustments to forms here and there...instructing students in sparring rather than partaking himself...standing back, and delegating orders to other Black Belts who-

Who were now  _his students_.

It should have been weird. It should have felt unusual and strange and scary, but it  _wasn't._  Maybe that was a sign. Pity then, that he should figure this out the same month someone showed up to kick off the investigation. But that wasn't something Ben was going to worry about. Well, at least not  _today._

It had been a year. A year since he'd taken his name back and fought for his and his friend's lives, and fled a burning building. A year since he'd first kissed Rey.

They'd agreed not to celebrate it as some formal anniversary with a big dinner or gifts, either because they both instinctively knew there would be many, many more to come, or because they were just dealing with far too much to add any sort of extra stress or expectations to their lives, and when Rey had suggested they simply go out on a date, he'd jumped at the opportunity.

Despite the dry heat of the summer, he pulled on a pair of gray slacks (not  _exactly_  his color, but black felt a tad too formal) and a white button-up, deciding that was nice enough and he didn't have to worry much about his hair. Rey liked it long and a little curled and messy anyway. Plus, there was never any point to trying to style it since she'd mess it up anyway.

Not that he minded.

Rey was waiting for him in the hallway, all smiles and freckles, in a white sundress that swished and landed somewhere around her knees, with a star-shaped pendant around her neck that still made his heart beat a bit faster to see. She'd pulled half her hair back, and grinned up at him as he stepped closer and leaned down for an appropriately chaste kiss, considering the fact that they were still at the Dojang.

"Happy Anniversary," she said softly, eyes shining up at him.

Butterflies.

Fourth degree black belt, only two years from thirty, and somehow, Rey was capable of leaving him a nervous, stammering, blushing mess.

In an effort to at least  _try_  to act casual rather than expose exactly how fluttery that feeling in his chest had gotten, he leaned in again and pressed his lips to her forehead. "Happy Anniversary, sweetheart."

"So, where are we going?"

Ah. Right. When she'd offered to pick a place for dinner a few weeks earlier, he'd told her he already had something in mind, but he'd never explained what, or where, and he wasn't entirely sure she'd appreciate what he'd planned. Obviously he  _hoped_  she would, but...it was risky, and he suddenly found himself wishing he'd run the idea past someone else first.

Too late to turn back now.

Ben took a deep breath and said, "It's a bit of a drive. Trust me?"

She snorted. "Stupid question."

* * *

Conversation during the ride was light and easy, as it almost always was between them, until Ben asked the damned question, "Have you thought any more about your major?"

He should have known better. He really, really should have.

Rey had been trying to figure out a major since before she'd started college, and now that she was about to start her third year, she was going to have to pick one, and even though she hadn't said much about it, he should have known it was something she'd been stressing about.

"I'm not sure," she admitted. A moment later he saw her shrug from the corner of his eye, "I've gotten all the basic requirements out of the way, but now…" she sighed, and slumped in the Falcon's seat a bit, "Now I have to start taking classes specific to a major. Class registration is open and I'm not sure what to do."

Ben nodded. He understood, at least a bit. He'd floundered with deciding on something, but he'd been convinced at the time that he'd be taking over the Dojang, so he'd settled on studying business administration, hoping it would help him a bit. Rey was having a tougher time picking something, though.

"Part of me wishes I could make a career out of Taekwondo," she admitted, "but I'm not sure I have the sort of patience I'd need. I love it as a hobby - even as a way of life, but...I don't know. I think I need something different. Something outside of it, where I can stay a bit more grounded."

"Well, what parts of Taekwondo do you like most?"

She went quiet for a moment, and then said, "I've really liked helping the lower belts. Not  _teaching_  them, exactly - I really don't have the patience for that. I'm not sure how you and Phasma do it." Ben glanced over quickly before looking back to the road. Her face was scrunched up in thought. "It's more like...guiding them. Like, they already know what to do, or they have an idea of what to do, and they just need a push in the right direction. A little course correction, you know? Someone to talk to, when they need advice. And I know it sounds odd since I was still technically a teenager until a few weeks ago, but I  _like_  working with teenagers."

Ben blinked as a real-world example came to mind.

"Like a guidance counselor? They work with teenagers and yeah, most of their advice is related to picking colleges, but they give general advice, too."

Another look over at her showed that she was a bit surprised, her lips parted as she murmured the words  _guidance counselor_.

"It actually makes a lot of sense," he continued, trying not to grip the steering wheel too harshly as he said quietly, "With everything you... _dealt with_ , you'd probably be able to recognize the same sort of behaviors in kids who're dealing with abuse."

"That's a great idea," she breathed, sounding like they'd both just lifted a massive weight from her chest. "Ben...that's  _brilliant_."

He smiled over at her, "Really? You think that's what you'd want to do?"

"Yeah, I do," she nodded, biting at her lip. "Maybe I'll talk to Amilyn before I sign up for classes. Get her take on it. I'm not really sure what sort of degree is required for that, so maybe she can help."

It struck him that there was a time, not long ago, when she never would have considered relying on someone for help. Just four or five years earlier, he would have had to convince her just to let him buy her food, so the idea of her being willing to rely so heavily on anyone - on his mother, for her current living arrangements...Amilyn, for career advice…

"I'm glad I could help," he said softly, a smile playing lightly at the corners of his mouth.

She grinned broadly over at him, reaching over to squeeze his arm, and for a single moment, it was perfect and happy and-

Rey tensed up and let out a quiet gasp as her smile dropped, and that was how Ben knew she'd figured out where they were going. He was a little surprised she hadn't recognized their surroundings a bit sooner, but maybe that was for the best. He'd known it was perhaps not his best idea, but once he explained his reasoning, he thought it would come across more as sweet and less as...idiotic.

"Uh." She let out a nervous laugh that was free of any real humor, "Ben, I'm not sure how to take this. Last time we came out here things didn't go so well, and-"

He frowned, working out the meaning to her words, and as he parked the Falcon in the small parking area he'd pulled into, he connected the dots and his eyes shot wide.

_Oh, shit._

"And- and- I swear to  _God_ , Ben Solo, if you brought me out here on our  _anniversary_ , just to break-"

Ben's hands shot out to cup her face, pulling her in for a kiss before she could finish what would have arguably been the worse sentence he'd ever heard in his life. Rey sighed into him almost immediately, a shocking amount of tension leaving her body as they kissed, and he instantly felt terrible for not explaining his intentions first.

He pulled away after a minute and clasped his hands around hers. "I'm so sorry, I should have explained," he said quickly. "Do you remember our first date? How we went to the diner and it was hard because not all our memories were happy? Rey, one of my happiest memories of us was from this place and I've hated that it was ruined."

Rey's expression softened from one of fear and a hint of anger to one of hope, and understanding. "And you wanted to...reclaim it? As a happy place for us?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "But if this is a bad idea we can go anywhere else. I've got a picnic basket packed in the back and we can take it anywhere, or just forget about it and go to a restaurant - whatever you want."

She took a minute to think about it, then smiled slightly at him and said, "It was a good idea. I'm not going to lie to you," she sighed, "I think you broke my heart the last time we were out here. But...I know why you did it, and  _yeah_ , it could have been handled better - by both of us - but..."

Rey hesitated again, staring down at her lap before he looked over at him. "But it's in the past. I'd rather move forward, and you're right...that first night we came here is one of my happiest memories, too."

"Oh?"

She was silent for a moment, and then cleared her throat, met his eyes, and whispered, "This was where I fell in love with you."

* * *

The spot Rey followed him to was just between two trees, possibly exactly where they'd laid before on two separate, and dramatically different occasions. They sat down on the grass, and she half-wondered why they'd bothered with clothing that was arguably formal, but for some reason, she thought back to the first time they'd been there.

Just after Han's funeral...she'd been in a dress then, too, and-

Probably without even realizing it, Ben snapped her out of what may have been a long span of time spent reminiscing, handing her a glass of-  _ah_ , sparkling cider. She tried and failed to not snort at the non-alcoholic drink, and raised an eyebrow at him.

"I've had wine, you know."

Ben rolled his eyes, pouring himself a glass, "Yeah, but that's Phasma's fault, not mine. I'm pretty sure I might already be going to hell for corrupting you so much and I really don't think I need to add  _encouraged underage drinking_  to the list."

Well, he had a point. She laughed and nodded, leaning over to paw through the picnic basket he'd brought.

"It's nothing fancy," he muttered apologetically, but Rey waved him off.

"Relax. The fanciest our dates tend to get is the diner. I really didn't expect that you'd filled this thing with champagne and caviar."

Really, she was relieved he'd brought them somewhere like this. Of course, she hadn't expected this exact location, but it was preferable to the other options they had at the moment.

Her and Rose had lost their apartment, and while they probably could have fought the eviction, it seemed to be a bit of a sunk cost, and lost cause. Everyone was sure Snoke was the reason behind it, and it seemed a bit useless to fight him when they had other options. Rose had been happy to move in with Hux and Phasma, and Rey was given both the option of moving back into the Dojang apartment, or in with Leia.

On first thought, she'd almost jumped at the chance to live with Ben. It was pretty clear that things were headed that way, but  _then_  she remembered they'd share a wall (and a bathroom) with Luke, and suddenly it became a lot less appealing. Nothing against Luke, of course, but when Leia subtly mentioned that Rey would have a considerable amount of privacy and space to herself if she moved in with her, well...overall, it was probably the best option for everyone.

Even so, she felt a little odd about having Ben sleepover. He still did, but it wasn't quite the same as having her own place. Leia was easy to live with (especially since she was rarely at home), but she and Ben had to be considerably more careful. That was why a night-in wasn't their first option for how to spent their anniversary, and while the second choice probably would have been going out to a restaurant, most restaurants tended to be annoyed when you stayed for hours just talking (or possibly making out) after you finished eating.

Ugh. They were  _that_  obnoxious couple, weren't they? Rey let out a weird giggle-snort sound when she realized it, and Ben's gaze snapped to her as he tilted his head curiously. "What is it?"

She bit her lip a bit and shrugged. "Just thinking that this was probably the best place to come tonight."

"Oh, right. More privacy," he nodded, "and no getting scolded for PDA at a restaurant again." Ben paused, and frowned. "Wait, shit, are we one of  _those_  couples?"

Rey burst out laughing, accidentally dropping her glass which had, thankfully, been mostly empty. She didn't bother picking it up right away and instead clapped a hand over her mouth as she continued laughing, and nodded at him. "I think we are."

He groaned, and then ended up laughing along with her. After a minute or so of grinning he reached into the basket and grabbed a couple of sandwiches wrapped in plastic wrap, tossing her one as he explained, "I hope you don't mind. Maz helped me put it together. We've got sandwiches, fruit and veggies, and some of her cookies."

"Sounds perfect."

They munched at what Maz had packed them and eventually laid out on a blanket Ben had brought, staring up at the sky that was starting to darken, and at the stars that were starting to show. Their view was mostly unobstructed by trees, just like the first night they'd spent there, though this time, Rey didn't hesitate to reach out and tangle her fingers in his.

"Do you remember what we talked about the first time we came here?"

She whispered the words, almost as though she was afraid to break the silence that had fallen between them and the night sky above them.

Ben's grip on her hand tightened, and he answered in a similarly soft tone, "I asked you to tell me something I didn't know about you."

"I wanted to give you a happy memory," she admitted. "Han had just died and I wanted to tell you something happy, but I realized that almost all of my happy memories at that point had involved you."

"Oh."

"So, instead I told you about how I'd had a habit of running away, trying to follow the light from certain stars, hoping I'd find my real home. I probably would have run away from Plutt eventually if I hadn't met you and Luke, you know. But when I met you, it felt like I'd finally found my home, and I couldn't bring myself to leave."

Ben turned his head toward her, and light from the full moon lit his face just enough to show an expression of awe as he said, "I meant everything I said that night. I told you starlight can guide you home, and all you've done since then was prove me right. You're my starlight," he said softly, "and I followed you home."

He turned over onto his side and she did the same, facing him while resting her head on her folded arm, and Ben reached out to caress her face.

"I'll always follow you home."

How did he manage to steal her breath away, even after a year of dating, just as he had that first night? She didn't have an answer, and she didn't have the words, so instead of stumbling over them, she leaned in and kissed him.

Ben pulled her closer and ended up rolling over her as he braced a knee on either side of her hips, kissing her slowly while he cupped her cheek. Her hands ran over his chest and through his hair, and after a few minutes, he pulled back, catching his breath as he planted light kisses along her jaw.

"I have an idea," she said coyly, "We've never quite broken in the Falcon. Specifically, the backseat?"

It was as if she'd dumped a bucket of ice water on him, because he seemed to choke and either cough or laugh against her neck. Rey frowned, and noticed his shoulders shaking, and finally he pulled back, blushing furiously.

"Uh, what'd I say?"

Ben snorted, sitting back on his feet, and he ran a hand through his hair while he let out a long breath. "Sorry sweetheart, it's just...I'm almost completely sure I was conceived in that car, and not only would it be really weird, but I also don't feel like tempting fate."

She blinked up at him for a moment and then burst out laughing. "Okay," she giggled, "that's a pretty good reason."

" _But_ ," he leaned back down over her, bracing himself on his hands as he gave her a soft kiss, "that doesn't mean I can't take you home. I figured I'd spend the night, if that's okay."

Rey had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. "Is it ever  _not_  okay?"

"Good point," he grinned. Not five seconds later, Ben had stood up, reaching his hand out to her, and she took it, letting him help her up. "C'mon, let's get out of here."

It took them barely a minute to pack up the basket and fold the blanket, but something still kept her tied to the spot, and she tugged on Ben's hand when he turned to leave. He glanced back, confused, but set the basket and blanket down and turned back to her. "What's up?"

There was something truly sentimental about being there, with him, and suddenly, she wasn't quite ready to leave. She took a step closer, staring up at him with wide, serious eyes, and whispered, "I'm really glad you brought me back out here, Ben."

He took a deep breath, and kissed her forehead, murmuring, "Me too. Happy anniversary, starlight."

* * *

Rey looked over Callum's stance critically.

With his recent promotion, Callum was thrust forward into the vast and empty journey known as being a senior-level student in Luke's dojang. This often meant being subject to and party to a host of complicated techniques and classes that he hadn't had the chance to participate in before. Granted, those semi-private sessions usually ended up as Rey and her friends practicing together, exchanging words easily as they all worked out the kinks in their own forms.

The thin film of privacy of those classes had been shattered with Callum's arrival into their sessions. Ben and Phasma still lead the majority of Luke's classes, especially since Ben's promotion, but during senior training, they were relegated to the role of students once more, especially as Luke occasionally took them aside for direct instruction.

This often left Rey and Poe working together with Callum, helping him with his balance and offering small pointers and tips on whatever the subject for the session was that day.

Poe was out today, leaving Rey to work with Callum alone, while Luke worked with Ben and Phasma on addressing any problems they might have with Pyongwon, the fourth black belt poomse they were both required to know to have attained fourth dan.

"How does that feel?" she asked, tilting her head, as if trying to correct his stance just by sight.

Callum did his darned best not to squirm under her stare. "It feels a little weird," he said. His left leg was crossing his right along the back, touching the ground beside his heel on the ball of his foot. "What's this called again?"

"Cross stance," Rey answered without really thinking. "It's a little weird to adjust to at first, but it's important you get used to the feeling. One of your upcoming poomse is going to use this as its ending stance, and if you're not familiar with the feeling you're just going to fall over."

Callum caught her eye and the next thing she knew he was looking away, his stance worsening in the space of a breath, his legs shaking in that way that only butterflies in your stomach could be responsible for.

Rey caught the eye of Kyung in the mirror, his obsidian stare following her and Callum's every move. She didn't let her awareness of his presence outwardly affect her, but she did wince internally at Callum's dissolving resolve. Kyung had been visiting fairly regularly for the past few weeks, never announcing his arrival aside from the first night he'd shown, after which it was just assumed the man would show up whenever he pleased.

"Why don't we take a break here?" she said kindly. Summer was in full swing, and whatever air conditioning solution that existed was meandering drunkenly along its way to Cocytus, instead of actually staying alive and keeping them cool. This had the side-effect of making the dojang into a virtual hotbox, requiring frequent breaks lest someone faint.

"I can still keep going!" Callum protested, even if he looked about three seconds of eye contact away from passing out. The boy's legs shook with the obstinacy of youth and the slaving instinct to never look bad in front of his crush.

Rey sighed, thought something unflattering about arrogant teenagers, realized that up until not too long ago she'd  _been_ one of those arrogant teens, and then forced a smile, because Callum absolutely did not deserve the kind of heated exhaustion that was running rampant through her brain right now.

"I say we're stopping," she said instead. It came out a bit testy, but well, she'd like to see any jury not acquit her for her tone under the circumstances. "Go get some water, Callum. We've still got an hour left to go through."

Either Callum was a lot better at controlling himself than Rey had been at his age, or whatever mutinous thought he'd been considering died a swift death at the capital-L  _Look_  she shot him when she spoke. He stood, straightened, and bowed, a shade lower than was probably strictly necessary when working with another student, and then left to go rejuvenate on courage and water.

It was then that Kyung, who'd been standing to the side the entire time this far, decided to step forward into the main area. He was wearing his dobok, which looked as if it might have been shipped from the factory the day before. The folds were crisp, the collar was immaculate, and there were no creases in the uniform, a stark contrast to Master Luke's, which looked as if he'd held on to it since he'd first gotten his black belt, which was a distinct possibility now that Rey thought about it.

Kyung crossed the area and stood in front of Rey. Rey, not forgetting ingrained instincts, straightened up and bowed to him. When she rose, she hoped that glint in his eyes was approval. Or at the very least interest.

"Master Skywalker has given me permission to join in these classes, for the purposes of my investigation," Kyung said without preamble. Rey recognized he probably thought he didn't have to explain his reason for being there, and tried not to feel too belligerent. "I will be testing you to see if you are at an adequate skill level for your ranking. As... _unique_  as it may be."

Rey didn't have to be a genius to know he was eyeing the various stripes on her belt. A normal black belt would spend three to four promotions, or a year minimum working up to second dan. She was already on number seven and well on her way to earning her eighth. She'd actually run out of room on one end of her belt, and the electric tape denoting her stripes had to be moved on to the other side to accommodate the rest.

"Why have you not been promoted to second dan yet?" Kyung demanded with the kind of tone that said that the matter of her answering was without question.

Rey met his stare, and didn't blink. She longed to look over and borrow some courage from the sight of Ben, Luke, or even Phasma, but this was one shark she had to wade the waters of all on her own.

"Master Luke and I came to a disagreement regarding a personally sensitive topic for both of us," she answered. She chose to keep the topic as vague as possible, hopefully in the hopes of satisfying the man without delving too deep into details that she was sure would keep get everyone into more trouble. "I reacted poorly and insulted him."

Kyung crossed his arms, and,  _surprise surprise_ , emoted. Suspicion and interest alighted behind that pitiless countenance. "You could have been stripped of your belts for that."

The way he said it, it was clear he thought the word  _could_  should have been replaced with  _should_. Rey wasn't surprised to hear this. Any man who could respect Snoke had to share some of that old lich's traits and the belief that unrelenting obedience was mandatory and not a requirement was probably one of the more tame ones.

Instead, she nodded. She didn't avert her stare, but she did close her eyes and frown, hoping to express her regret, nevertheless. "I was in the wrong. Master Luke didn't have to let me keep practicing but he did."

It had never fully struck her, just how deeply she'd hurt him with her accusation that he cared more for an impartial, admittedly beautiful, but lonely way of life in Taekwondo, than he did his own family. At least, not until she'd heard the story of how Anakin had scorned those closest to him and set astray the course of Luke's life, all for a building that would never be able to substitute the people inside it.

Kyung's stare roamed the state of the dojang. Luke's semi-private session with Ben and Phasma was taking place on the opposite corner of the dojang, and they may as well have been on the other side of the Pacific for all the comfort their presence was. "What is your opinion of Grand Master Skywalker?"

Rey muted her first response. As much as she was sure that Luke would be flattered by a flat out compliment any sort of abnormality might lead Kyung to think something unseemly.

"He's...fair," Rey decided on, at last. "That's the best way I can describe him. He's never done wrong by me or any of the other students he's taught, even if it seems like it at the time, when he's lecturing us or correcting our mistakes."

"How often does he have to do so?" Kyung asked, and then, like a snake in the grass he added, "It sounds like you have experience with this."

Rey paused, and chose her next words very carefully. "I don't know how often he corrects others," she confessed, because she didn't. That sort of thing was a private affair and making a show of punishments was not in line with Luke's way of teaching. "I've...he's worked with me on correcting several of my mistakes."

A second passed and Rey found herself desperately wishing for Callum to return and save her from this automaton in human skin.

"How many times have you been punished by this dojang?" Kyung bluntly demanded. There was no facial indication of emotion beyond the slight tightening at the outer edge of his eyes as they narrowed almost imperceptibly.

She was saved from answering by the timely arrival of her temporary student. Either he didn't see the black belt tied around Kyung's waist, or Callum still hadn't developed that self-preserving instinct most students learned to listen to when in the presence of gravely serious Grand Masters.

"I'm ready whenever you are, ma'am," Callum said with forced cheer. Then, self-awareness and social convention finally manifested and he seemed to realize something was wrong when he looked between Rey and Kyung. "Oh. Um. Uh. Am I interrupting something?"

Kyung looked to Callum as if he was deciding the boy was worth the effort of the coming with the words to dismiss him altogether. Kyung nodded to the boy and bestowed Rey with another variant on his usual haughty yet apathetic stare.

"We'll continue our discussion another time," Kyung said, and once again Rey could tell he was only saying it for her benefit. He'd already decided it would be so, and whether she accepted or not had very little relevance to it actually happening. "I'd like to see one thing from you though, Miss Kenobi."

Rey forced down the indignation rising inside her. She was starting to wonder if Master Luke was just the exception or not, because thus far every other Grand Master's she'd met had been nothing but an unappreciative ass.

"How can I help, Master Kyung?" she said, all cyanide smiles and neurotoxin sweetness.

"Keumgang. Do you know it?"

It was the second black belt form, and fortunately one that Rey hadn't struggled with nearly as much after Koryo. "Yes, sir."

"Who taught it to you?"

Rey's eyes flickered over to the corner where Ben and Phasma were no performing in sync. "Master Solo did."

Interest alighted once more, and she could see the gears turning in the man's mind. She had no idea what he was thinking, but she could see calculations and speculative lines of thought fire off into the unknown.

"Show me."

Another order, another command meant to be endured, rather than resisted. Rey wondered if this was going to be the new routine. This strange man interrupting her and her family's lives all for the sake of upholding some arbitrary honor code set forth by a graying and probably decaying group of old men.

In a demonstration of maturity that would have paralyzed her younger self, Rey didn't show the man any sort of indication regarding this, and instead dismissed Callum with a silent but solemn nod.

"Chiryat! Keumgang junbi!" Kyung prompted.

Keumgang was named after one of the many mountainous regions in the Korean area. Unlike Koryo, Rey had taken to this form like a fish to water, and whether it was because of who taught it to her, or because she'd already internalized the idea behind Keumgang, Rey didn't know.

"Shijak!"

With a deep breath Rey leapt into action. Her heartbeat slowed, her perception of the world melted into just her and the man in front of her. The man who threatened everything she'd ever worked for. The image of Kyung was swapped with the image of Snoke, as she'd last seen him, smiling, alive, and delighting in the knowledge that there was so much more hurt in store for her and her friends.

Her feet came down in a stomp, and she moved sideways, alternating and falling into a square-like stance that shook her with every step. The vibrations she sent in the floor spread, and she could almost imagine herself connecting with the building at large, drawing strength from years and years of young and old martial artists learning, testing, breaking, and reforging in this same room.

The air trembled with her kihap, and she did not waver. Whereas Koryo was meant wisdom, Keumgang in action was meant to illustrate hardness. Not indestructibility, as nothing ever truly was indestructible, but the kind of resolute and unwavering strength of self that mimicked a mountain, that told the world that it if it wanted to break her, it was going to have to  _work for it_.

Rey had learned that lesson when she was young, long before she'd met Luke. She just...needed to learn everything else that came before it too.

Her arms came down in the double block and she could feel the eyes of everyone in the dojang fall on her as she let out her second kihap for the poomse.

She caught Kyung's eyes, and some of that untameable resistance flared in her and she just couldn't resist smirking at him, knowing full well this was not what he'd been expecting when he asked her to perform Keumgang.

When she finished, her arms and legs shaking with a quiver that belied the strength she still possessed, Rey stood tall and proud, aware that she'd thwarted Kyung's expectations of her performance.

Kyung walked around her, inspecting her, and she made sure not to follow his stare. He looked at her like a man would a tool, inspecting it for faults or any irredeemable qualities. Whereas before his gaze had been filled with something akin to pity but not quite as kind, this one now felt a little like a pack of wolves realizing the thing they'd cornered still had a bit of bite to it.

And Rey was ready to fight to the end for her and her family if it came down to it.

"Baro," Kyung ordered. She returned to normal starting position, and his lips curved upwards by about one micrometer. "You put too much weight on your lead foot in your side stances, but otherwise...well done."

Rey got the impression that she'd just done something very impressive but found she didn't care. "I had a good teacher," she said by way of accepting the compliment.

"Mmm," Kyung said non-committedly.

He stepped back then, resuming his post like some gargoyle on vigil. Breathing perhaps a tad harder than normal, Rey ordered for Callum to come back in. The boy had been watching the entire conversation and all seven subconscious conversations with wide impressed eyes, and it took her calling his name a second time for him to realize that yes, he still had to participate.

"Let's try cross-stance again," she said. The whole affair was exhausting. She'd been half-expecting Luke or one of the others to interrupt, but in a way, she was glad. She knew she could rely on them but there was something to be said in knowing you could stand up to the tide of the ocean with naught but will and patience.

Callum fell into his version of cross-stance, one knee bending down a little more than necessary, and Rey immediately could tell where the problem was. After sparing Kyung one last look, she turned and devoted the rest of her attention to Callum, who, she realized, she hadn't been treating fairly, what with dividing her attention between him and Kyung.

Eventually, senior training came to an end and regular class began. Luke had recently switched his schedule to allow the lower belts to interact with the higher belts at least once a week, so when he relented and faded back into his office, Ben and Phasma found themselves handling the whole class for the first time.

It went about as well as could be expected. Many of the lower belts were curious about the strange and silent man watching them from aside, but most of them weren't in the know regarding ranks and the importance of visiting masters. After Ben had them all gasping for breath by the seven minute mark of their fifteen minute warmup they all collectively decided there were more important things to do than speculate on the strange man...like breathing.

Rey made sure to help and respond as promptly whenever they called on her to demonstrate for some of the girls. The least she could do was be helpful, and besides, it was like she'd told Ben. She  _liked_  helping the lower belts.

When they broke for the day, Rey realized she was  _tired_. Despite her pledging ignorance of the man's presence after he interrupted her earlier, practicing with Kyung watching was stressful, not just because she felt like she couldn't make a mistake, but also because she'd been keeping an eye out on the others to make sure they were all set as well.

Still, seeing the dojang fuller than it had been in months, noticing the happy and satisfied looks on everyone's faces, it did make her think that things could still end up okay.

There were still some stragglers, and Rey resolved to help them, putting on a friendly face and approaching each of the white belts who looked like they had questions, but were still too nervous to speak out in class.

After helping them and sending them on their way, Rey leaned back against the closest vertical surface and breathed a sigh of relief.

It was two in the afternoon, and her stomach was well on its way to committing mutiny if she didn't give it  _something_. Rey really didn't know how Phasma and Ben managed to look so unphased throughout the whole thing. She'd seen some of the things they'd been doing, with the class, kids or otherwise.

The door to Luke's dojang opened, and Rey stood up immediately. Kyung, who'd stepped inside earlier, paid neither her nor any of the remaining students any mind, before heading for the locker room. A second later, Luke appeared in the doorway, looking drained, but not upset, which was a pretty good track record for someone who'd just spent five minutes in Kyung's presence as far as Rey cared.

"Rey?" he called, and she stepped forward. "Would you please come in to my office?"

It was either dread or last night's dinner that lurched into her stomach then, banishing any treacherous thoughts about hunger to the abyss. She steeled herself with a breath and by shaking her head, before smiling at the curious look shot her, assuring him with her smile that she was fine, Luke was fine, and that everything was going to be just  _fine_.

She stepped into the office, and took a second to compare it to the previous iterations of her time there. She still remembered entering this very room to pick up the forms that would allow her to enroll in Luke's classes, back when she'd been fourteen. The room had looked a lot more put together then, with neatly stacked piles of papers in the clearly marked inbox and outbox trays, and a tidy but semantically significant organizations to the various office supplies on the table.

During Ben's time with  _The First Order_  the office had had a much more disorganized look to it, with several bills piled up or various other things lying not in piles, but without a set pattern and no filing system in sight. She wouldn't have called it messy then, because Luke wasn't really one to be messy, but  _harried_  was probably a good second place choice of description.

And now...now the office was looking a little bare. It no longer bore the markings of an old man shouldering the load of a much younger one, but at the same time it was missing that convivial atmosphere from her first visit. Luke had cleared out many of his personal items from the visible surfaces, leaving the room feeling a lot larger than it really was, with only a minimum amount of items in both the in and out trays. Though, even with the recent influx of new students, Rey had to wonder just how much paperwork and logistical work operating such an old building would be.

As she sat down, one particular piece of paper jumped out at her. It bore an official-looking logo in the upper left, and Rey had to resist the urge to crane her neck and try and make out.

"Building inspector," Luke said apropos of nothing and startling Rey. He smirked, seeing her reaction, and tapped the paper on his desk. "You were curious about this, right? Here, why don't you read it."

He passed her the paper and Rey dabbed her fingers against her dobok nervously to clear any sweat off before picking up the paper.

She blinked, reading the document over.

"What is this?" she said, holding the paper out and away from her as if it were diseased.

Luke sat down heavily in his chair, a creaky, bright orange thing that squeaked when you turned the seat left. "Apparently," he said, picking up the remaining stack on his desk and rifling through the documents, "I'm failing inspection of the building."

Rey took a moment to look between the paper and her master once more.

"What?"

"It's Snoke again."

"No, I get that, I just," Rey shook her head, "what's even the  _point_  of this?"

"Remember what I said about the man's MO and who he learned it from?"

"I- yeah. Are you saying this is more of that? He's just trying to, what, bleed us out?"

Luke snorted. "To put it lightly. I'm going to have to pay a lot of fees to fix these problems kid, otherwise I'm not going to be able to operate it as a place of business. Not legally. And definitely not with Master Kyung watching us."

Rey tried not to make a face at the mention of their  _other_  most recent problem, but then she remembered she used to live with Luke and decided he deserved to know her opinion. "He's an ass."

Luke blinked. "Who is? Snoke?"

"I mean, him too, but no, that's not who I was talking about." Rey rolled her eyes. "Kyung."

Luke leaned back in his chair, and for some unfathomable reason Rey got the impression that he was highly amused. "What makes you say that?"

"He interrupted me and a lower belt earlier," Rey said bluntly. "He started asking all these questions about me and my opinion of you and how you've punished me and it just...bothered me a lot. It was like he was trying to find something wrong with you."

He spread his arms apart. "I can assure you Rey, he'll have no trouble with that part. Master Kyung has a vast array of words he can use to describe me and  _perfect_ is certainly not one of them."

The dread from earlier morphed into annoyance. "You could at least sound a little more worried you know. You've been very cavalier recently, even before Kyung arrived."

"Hmm."

She waited for him to answer with something more, but then realized that was all he was going to say.

"I just," Rey stopped. She started again, seeing his earnest look. "I just...are you even taking this seriously anymore, sir? I mean I know you warned me and Ben about Kyung when he arrived but..."

She waved in the general direction, feeling like there was something pressing against the back of her neck, accompanied by the feeling of something drastic on the horizon. "It's just...with all this stuff regarding Snoke, and with how much everyone is just suffering for it...do we even have a plan?"

It had been bothering her a lot, recently. She'd never been one to just stand still and take life's lashings like some penitent prisoner. Ever since starting Taekwondo, under this very same man's instruction, Rey had never liked letting things lie, even when it came to Plutt. She'd been making plans, avoiding Plutt entirely, working on exercising her right as a living breathing person and flourishing within something she'd known Plutt would never have approved.

When Ben had left, when things between him and those around him had deteriorated to the point that it looked like they would have lost him forever if not for her intervention, Rey hadn't let things lie. In fact, she'd kicked herself many times over for not pushing sooner, for not pressing the subject faster. Maybe they could have saved Ben from some of the horrors he'd faced if they'd done so.

And now, with Snoke pressing them further and further against the cliff's edge, Rey was getting worried that soon it was going to be too late and they would wind up as another group of ants under the bottom of that man's boot, crushed and mocked for daring to stand up to him.

"Do we even have a hope anymore, Master Luke?" she asked.

Luke narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, finally recognizing how serious she truly was. He rose from his chair, and gently shut the door, making sure to turn the handle and release it to avoid the unfortunate loud jamming noise it did when closing with the static hinge. On doing so, he faced Rey, and, instead of heading back to his chair, he knelt down beside her.

"We always have hope, Rey," Luke uttered softly. She looked to him then, and saw years and decades of experience and teaching and knowledge look kindly upon her discontent form. "It is, perhaps, one of the few things we as humans will always have with us. It is only when we cast it aside that we truly lose it."

She'd felt unbreakable earlier, performing Keumgang and all but spitting in the face of Snoke's puppet; but unbreakable didn't mean safe, and Rey missed the feeling of safety she used to have in the dojang, missed it so much she could have just punched Snoke's teeth in and screamed at him until his guts liquified from her rage. For all the good it would do.

"He wants to get rid of you, Master Luke," Rey said, her voice hoarse from the tight control she held on her emotions. "Kyung. You can see it in the way he looks at you. He doesn't think you're fit to be a master anymore."

"He doesn't now, does he?" For some reason, Luke sounded amused when he said this and Rey wanted to shake him. "Well, I can promise you this Rey, so long as you and Ben still need me, I won't be leaving this place for anything."

Rey breathed as a sudden and almost overwhelming wave of relief took over her. There was still a bit of tightness in her chest, but just hearing those words had an alleviating effect on her. "Thank you, sir."

Luke's eyes turned a bit misty. "Of course, kid," he gruffed. If Rey noticed that his voice had gained a warble she didn't make mention of it. "Anything for you two."

He stood then, and sat back down across from her in his seat. Both of them were silent, each processing the surprise outwell of emotion in their own ways, Rey by grabbing a standard new student form and comparing the scenery in the office with her own first visit, and Luke by...rifling through some more papers.

"Uh, did you want me for something sir?" she asked, remembering the original reason she'd even come in here.

"What? Oh! Oh yes. Now where was it." Luke set aside the stack of paper, he'd been looking through - the various building violation notices and accompanying documents - and grabbed a single sheet from the rather anemic pile in the inbox tray. "Here, I want you to take a look at this."

Rey looked over the paper, noting down the important details.

"A tournament?" she queried. "I- sir, I don't understand. Why are you showing this to me? I mean, I'm all for it, we haven't gone to one in a while, but why me?"

Her master chuckled, grabbing the paper back from her. "Because you're a black belt, kid, and unlike the last one you attended, I'm thinking of asking you to help out a little more this time around." His expression turned serious. "And for another reason."

Rey recalled. The shadow of Snoke as he stood over her and gave her helpful but ultimately dangerous advice that amounted to  _hurt your opponent no matter what_. The memory of Ben shredding his previous creative poomse to shreds in public for the sake of his then master's power play to Luke. The hurt and confusion that had spread through her and Luke at the name Ben had tossed around.  _Kylo Ren_.

"Snoke's going to be there, isn't he?" she asked.

Luke nodded, and leaned forward in his chair, elbows on the desk. "Considering he knew we were going to be there last time? Almost certainly."

Rey paused, and pondered on this information. "Why are we going then? We've missed plenty of them, why this specific one? Why not wait until Snoke's gone and dealt with?" A horrid thought crossed Rey's mind. "Sir, what if he does something to the lower belts while we're there?"

A small smile grew on Luke's face. "You're worried about them?"

He almost sounded pleased when he asked that, but Rey chalked that up to her imagination. "Of course I'm worried about them!" she argued. "Sir, it was one thing when Snoke was coming after just you or me and he was happy with keeping Ben to himself, but he's clearly shown he has no problem hurting others to get at what he needs. Maz's diner is proof of that."

After the health inspection fiasco, and the subsequent liquor license that had resulted in Maz losing more than a few days of business, the woman was finally back to a semi-reliable schedule again. Unfortunately, the damage done to her businesses reputation after failing the health inspection was taking a little longer to recover from than just a few months.

"That's why I'm asking for your help," Luke explained obliquely. "You've met the man. You know what kind of monster we're dealing with. Me, Ben and Phasma, we'll be doing damage control with Kyung and the rest of the masters at the tournament, keeping an eye on Snoke so he doesn't get do anything to worsen our position. But we're going to need someone to make sure he can't even touch the lower belts."

"Well then why are we even going in the first place?!" she demanded, standing up. A loud, growling beast was snarling in her head at the mere thought of Snoke getting anywhere close to Callum and the others. A couple of them were older than her, and she knew that in an ideal world they would have so much more than just the seventeen they'd managed today, but Rey didn't  _want_  to chance exposing them to Alistair Snoke.

Luke met her defiant stare coolly. "Why do you think?" he asked, voice low and strong. "Think back on what we've talked about."

Again with his incessant answering of a question with a question. Even so, Rey replayed the conversation in her head and came across a possible answer.

"You have a plan," Rey thought out loud. "You have a plan, but this tournament is part of it."

Luke nodded. "It is."

"And you want my help to make sure the lower belts don't get hurt."

"I do."

"Do I get to find out what this plan is?"

Luke met her curious stare and firmly stated, "No."

Her first instinct was to demand an explanation as to why. She almost voiced said instinct too, but then, she stopped. A little something called reason took hold and she thought about why. "I wouldn't like it, would I?"

Smiling. Luke was smiling. It looked so much different from the last time Rey saw him, just weeks ago in this same office, the day Kyung arrived and made their life  _just_  a bit harder. It took Rey a moment to mentally readjust to the gear shift this conversation had taken.

"Let's just say...this is not going to go the way you think."

Rey shivered. There was something ominous and foreboding in those words. Something dark and old and she realized then that as much as Snoke had learned from Anakin Skywalker, Luke had as well, and for the first time in a truly long time, that force was coming to bear once more. She'd seen signs of it, before, the day they'd gone to get her things from Plutt, and the night they all rescued Ben from that hellhole.

"Okay," she said, more to herself, than to Luke. "Okay. I trust you. God knows I trust you after everything Master Luke. I just-" she ran a hand through a bun she'd loosened out of nervousness and then rubbed her thumb over her dobok's collar nervously "-can you at least tell me if we'll all make it out okay?"

An enigmatic smile was his initial response. Then, because she clearly wasn't capable of telepathic speak just yet, Luke yielded an answer by saying, "Everyone will get exactly what they deserve at the end of this, Rey. I promise you."

Rey decided not to mention how he hadn't really answered her question.

Apparently deciding that was enough serious talk for now, Luke started chuckling once more. "I have to say though, of all the things I'd have expected to hear today, hearing Master Kyung sing praises about one of my students wasn't it."

"Oh? Well, I mean, Ben and Phasma were pretty good today. I thought they handled the class pretty well."

Luke nodded. "That they did. But they weren't the ones I was talking about."

Rey blinked, nonplussed. "They weren't?"

"No, they weren't." Undertones of pride came through and Rey realized Luke's smile had turned a lot warmer, and a lot more...paternal? "He was talking about  _you_ , kid."

"Uh….what?"

"He was pretty impressed with your execution of Keumgang," Luke noted, leaning back and steepling his fingers, over his chest. "He called it an impressive performance from someone so young, and even if you looked ready to hit something."

Unexpectedly, Rey blushed. She actually had been ready to. Mostly, she'd been imagining Kyung's or Snoke's face on the receiving end of it. Now she felt a little guilty for what had been entirely private thoughts.

"I thought he didn't like us, sir?" she couldn't help but ask.

"He doesn't like  _me_ ," Luke pointed out. "Maybe he doesn't like Ben a little bit too, but that's mostly due to being related to me and Han. I'm sure that as soon as he realizes he's his own man and not just another copy of me or my grandfather, Kyung will start to judge him on his own merits, not the faults of those who came before him. But you? Rey, the man's been nothing but impressed with you so far."

Rey spluttered, not expecting this sudden but perhaps not unwelcome praise. "I don't understand," she said at last. "I was pretty rude to him today."

"You showed proper deference even when you didn't want to," Luke said, marking fingers off in his hand, "you answered his questions properly and humbly, you performed a technically difficult poomse on command at a level that even he was satisfied with...Rey, I don't know what you did, but keep doing it."

Rey blushed even further. She couldn't help but guiltily admit, "I mostly just thought of breaking Snoke's nose during the whole thing, sir."

A loud bark of laughter tore through the previously appropriately quiet office. At first, Rey was worried her master had finally gone senile, it wouldn't have been the most insane thing to happen to her in her life, but no, Luke's sudden and irritatingly jovial tone returned. "Kid, if only you knew how much of my life I now spend thinking the same thing."

She let him have his fit of madness, both because she was unsure of where he was going with this, and because Luke needed a bit more laughter in his life.

"I'm not going to admonish you for having those thoughts," he said, as his chuckling dialed down to mere titters, "like I said, I have them myself. What's important is whether we act on them or not. Can you honestly say the you from four years ago, the night we fought, would have held herself back?"

Rey looked down, embarrassed at his public mention of what still was one of her greatest shames. "No, sir."

"Hey now, look at me."

Rey did, and for the umpteenth time since entering the office, she saw him smiling. Somehow, impossibly so, she smiled back.

"You've grown up, kid," Luke said, and she knew this was Luke the goofy and sometimes gruff uncle speaking, not Luke the Grand Master. "There's nothing wrong with that."

Oh goddammit. Goddamn Skywalker men and their stupid inability to not leave her emotional heartstrings in peace. There had to be something pathological in this family, or maybe with her, because this couldn't be possibly be normal.

After she stood and wiped away the tears that she certainly did not shed in front of a master who definitely looked away the entire time, Rey decided that she could do with a hug, damn whatever their Taekwondo stations demanded about propriety. So she did. Then after another squeeze, she stepped back, and smiled, feeling a lot lighter then than she did when she first stepped into the room.

"Let Ben know he can head out if he wants," Luke said, voice a bit gruffer than and dobok a bit more moist. "I'll stay behind to watch the place and help any lower belts. Spend some time together, or whatever you young'uns do."

Rey scrunched her nose at the word. "You sound so old when you use the word 'young'uns'."

"I'm an old man," Luke retorted. "Allow me the use of my damn words, you little chit."

She laughed gaily, perhaps a bit more than the repartee demanded but laughing felt good.

She stopped at the doorway, hand on the hinge, and turned back to Luke. "Sir?"

"Hmm?" He'd been inspecting another set of papers he'd procured from his desk drawer. This one looked a lot thicker than any of the packets she'd seen so far. Almost like a legal contract even. "What's up, kid?"

"We're going to win," she said, thinking back to the words, Rose had spoken months ago. "And we'll do it the right way."

Luke paused, and let the page he'd been lifting drop down. A funny little smile was on his face. A twinkle in his eye. Then, he coughed and motioned for her to leave. "Why don't you get going, kid, before you wind up an old dustbag like me."

"I don't think there's any chance of  _that_  ever happening, sir," she teased, "You're one of a kind, you are."

Muttering something about ungrateful children and the disrespect of her generation, Luke pointed firmly for her to leave.

She opened the door and was halfway to walking out when he spoke once more.

"Oh, actually, Rey?"

She popped her head back in to see Luke, smiling a smile a bit too full of teeth to be good for the health of anyone it was intended for.

"Mind sending Rose my way when you next see her?"

"Sure. No problem." Then, because Rey was born suspicious and was raised under a skeptical star, asked, "Why?"

"Because even though Snoke wants this building," Luke said, "I'm not planning on ever letting this place leave the hands of those I trust. And part of that entails planning for the future. I remember Miss Tico complaining about the lack of internet service here, and I'd like to rectify that." Luke winked.

Befuddled, and unsure of why he winked, Rey said, "Sure thing."

And then she left, grateful to have such an oddball man in her life.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A trip, a fight, and a soul.
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> Attack: So. Close. SO CLOSE. Four more chapters and we're at the epilogue. Also, funny note. When I originally outlined this it was 35 chapters and no more than 150K words. Yeah.
> 
> Onfire: It's funny. When we were in the process of writing this chapter me and Attack were both convinced this was finally going to be the first non-10K chapter in a while...only for me to end up writing so much stuff into that last scene. Honestly. What even is pacing, am I right? A lot of stuff in that last conversation with Luke, and I couldn't resist adding more Luke and Rey bonding time, because I realized we haven't had a scene with just them in a while. Dropped some fairly heavy foreshadowing here and there, hey, we're almost there! Four chapters to go and then we get to the epilogue chapters!  
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	51. Black Belt, Eighth Stripe, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys we're so close to the end and Onfire and I are SO excited.
> 
> [Master Post of Playlists and Fanart](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/180257950197/beautiful-calligraphy-courtesy-of)

"My mark hasn't hurt recently."

Kaydel looked up from where she was sipping from her teacup. Her yellow business notepad lay in her lap, and she looked perfectly composed and not at all nervous about letting a drop slip and potentially ruining hours if not days worth of work. To be fair, she always looked composed, but it was less like confidence and more the supreme faith and assurance that even if her hand slipped physics would somehow reassert itself and any tea would magically miss her and any of the surrounding papers.

"Are you referring to your…" her eyes flicked behind him, and Ben nodded. The brand on his back was a sensitive topic, and one he'd rarely broached in the months he'd been seeing her.

His hands still hurt - that would never change - but the itching, burning, cutting feeling of scarred and burnt skin hadn't bothered him in months. It was terrifying in a way, how the small persistent reminder had suffused his entire life to the point Ben could almost remember feeling it on his flesh even back when Ben had never heard the name of Snoke, almost as if he'd always belonged to the man.

"I uh," Ben licked his lips, and drank some more tea. He'd become rather partial to the blueberry flavored tea bags in recent months, and had even started drinking it outside of his sessions with Kaydel. "I actually went to see a doctor about it."

She quirked an eyebrow at that. "Did he ask you where you got it? It's in a fairly distinct shape."

"He did. I just told him I was being a stupid kid when I got it." Ben's smile turned a bit sardonic. "In a way, it was the truth."

Kaydel's expression was purely sympathetic, a carefully crafted expression that Ben once wondered if it was truly genuine.

"Anyways," he powered through the expectant silence, "I asked him and he thinks I'll be able to get rid of it. With a...with surgery, I mean."

That had been a pleasant surprise that he hadn't expected when he first went in to visit. Ben had cut off all ties with his old physician, both because he'd been introduced to the man's practice via a particularly rough session practicing judo throws, and because the man had very rarely looked Ben in the eye whenever he'd been scheduled to meet with him.

His newest physician had recommended Ben go see a specialist immediately once he caught sight of the sharply defined lines and shapes on his back. About the size of a fist, the mark stood out against his naturally pale skin, even if the only reminders Ben had of its presence nowadays was when the scar tissue brushed against clothing uncomfortably. The doctor had apparently been rightfully concerned over any lingering health issues that might arise from etching a symbol into your skin.

The specialist had made sure to ask Ben a battery of questions and they'd run some tests, but Ben was unlikely to suffer any sort of long-term health concerns regarding the mark. Ben wasn't surprised. Just like Snoke, the brand had been performed elegantly, if there was any way such a thing could be called elegant.

"Are you going to remove it then?" Kaydel asked, and then she rephrased. "Rather, do you want to?"

Ben hesitated.

"I should want to," he said in lieu of an actual answer. "Shouldn't I?"

"It's not my place to say what you should and shouldn't want," she replied. It wasn't the first time she'd said that. The first few times it had been incredibly frustrating, especially for Ben, who'd privately thought therapists to be a little more like lighthouses and less like albatrosses. "But let's think about this a little differently. Why do you feel like you should want it removed?"

Ben looked around the office. The room had long since become familiar to him, almost as familiar as the seemingly high-rise walls of his pit, and the arsenic grating holding him and his screams inside.

"I mean, I'm a master now," Ben said. He frowned and scowled down at his hands. No one else had noticed this, but his right handed grip was no longer what it once was. His time under Snoke had exacted the kind of tolls he would be paying for the rest of his life. "I'm supposed to rise above stuff like this. No longer let it define me."

"Are you letting it define you, though, Ben?" Kaydel jotted something down on her notepad.

"I guess?" Ben shrugged. "I mean, I still think about him. I still occasionally catch myself thinking of Snoke as my master. It's not a lot, but, I can't exactly forget what I did under his teachings, either." He swallowed thickly and readied himself for a confession he didn't even know he needed until the moment arrived. "I don't want to forget."

He reached up and teached the nape of his neck, which had so often felt like something sharp and alive had pressed up against it, during his time at  _The First Order_.

"I don't want to forget what it was like," Ben murmured, and shame welled up from that. Because he knew his family, Rey and the others would support him. Even if some didn't entirely get it, if they couldn't entirely understand - and he privately hoped they never would, there was a price to be paid for this kind of understanding - they'd probably all lend their strength.

He met Kaydel's stare. "Forgetting it all feels...wrong. It feels like running away."

As repulsive as the lessons had been, Ben had learned under Snoke. Admittedly, he'd thrown himself in the deep end with the sharks and eventually became one of the biggest and scariest ones there, but Ben had learned under Snoke. He'd learned that he  _hated_  fighting, to the absolute pits of whatever corner of his blackened soul there were. He learned what it was like to look in another's eyes and see yourself staring right back out, even as they'd beaten each other bloody.

Snoke had been  _wrong_  and was  _wrong_  in a way so pure and anathema to everything Ben had ever learned up to his meeting with the man, and yet the world hadn't ended. Matter and antimatter met and reality hadn't folded in two, crushed by the weight of two diametric opposites coming into contact.

He'd learned of goodness and the cost of it, even if his former master had done his damned best to strangle it out of Ben.

Ben looked at the door to Kaydel's office. He remembered the silent decision to keep coming, to ignore the voice that would have made it  _easy_ to stop. He remembered an old man's voice and words that made him warm. "I'm done with running away."

"It sounds like you have your reasoning then." And something a little like pride and a lot like mischief flashed across Kaydel's expression. Ben rolled his eyes. The expression was pure Leia Organa but of course she'd deny it. "It seems like you're still conflicted though."

Ben leaned forward, his bangs hanging over his face like chains from a prison wall. He let out a breath and rankled a few strands.

"I know I  _said_  I don't want to get rid of it but...it's just..." Ben closed his eyes and focused on the feeling of his body breathing clean, cool air and not drowning. "I don't know, at the same time, just letting it stay there on me...it feels like I'm letting him win."

"What do you count as winning in this case then?" Kaydel probed.

Ben frowned. He'd talked about the matters regarding the dojang, especially with Master Kyung's arrival a few weeks ago. She knew about Snoke's transparent desire for the building, and the investigation. She knew about Ben's recent revelations regarding his own family. She probably knew a lot more about his own inner ramblings and thoughts outside of anyone else but possibly, Rey.

That she'd asked that question meant something.

Kaydel shifted, uncrossing her legs and then switching them. She wore a pair of a small square reading glasses and as she clasped her hands and leaned forward in her seat, she removed them. Cerulean eyes met Ben's and there was a kindness in them that was so shocking in its earnestness he still had trouble meeting her stare for long.

"Let me rephrase that question," she said. "In an ideal world, what would be your definition of victory?"

Ben didn't even have to think to answer that. "He leaves us alone. He stops and leaves and we never hear from him again. It's...freedom."

In a way, it was a nightmare at the same time. Ben had been fighting for so long he didn't know if he could believe peace was even possible at this point. Not after leaving his former master in the burning centrepiece of his life's work and flying across the highway in a bird made of steel and fire.

"Now tell me," she asked. "What do you think Snoke's definition of victory is?"

This one was a little harder, but after answering the first question, the shape of the words came clearer to him. He recalled the conversation with Luke, the realization that Snoke had learned everything from Ben's grandfather.

"Domination. He...he wants everything. He wants us to know it's him."

A sick and diseased soul though that man may be, he was just as slave to his teachings as Ben was. It was, after all, the primary reason Snoke had sought him out. His  _heritage._

"Is him winning the same as you losing?"

Ben opened his mouth to say that of course it was, when he then stopped to think about it and shut his mouth.

Kaydel smiled.

"Is him losing, the same as you winning?"

Again, his first instinct was to say yes. For so long, he'd thought of their conflict with Snoke as a battle, a war of sorts, a pitched and heated battle between diametrically opposed sides, but truth be told, the fight was a lot more human than that.

His former master probably saw it all as strategies and counter strategies, investing his time and plans in pieces that would forward his plan while foiling their own. Hell, it probably wasn't even that to the man. Battles promised nothing but risk, and Snoke did not take risks.

Whereas games...games were nothing but reward. At least, to a man like Snoke, who'd never step into a ring without rigging the whole system in his favor.

Realizing his throat was a lot drier than he expected, gulped down some of the tea that'd gone cold. The blueberry suffusion almost parched his mouth more than it satiated it, but it was like the shock of the flavor knocked loose a single creative bolt, and something fell into place.

"Ben?"

"I have an idea." His hands itched, but in a good way this time.

"That's...good, I hope?"

Hope. That was one word for it.

A small beep emanated from Kaydel, and she pulled back the sleeve of her blouse to look at the watch on her wrist.

"It seems we're out of time," she said, and Ben was only half-paying attention. He stood, his mind adrift with sights and shapes, and he could barely wait to get home. "I suppose we should talk about your next appointment."

Ben tilted his head curiously in her direction. "Same time next week, right?"

Kaydel shook her head. "No, not this time." Her returning smile was tender and sympathetic. "In fact, I think we should cut down on many of our meetings entirely."

"I- what? Is something wrong?" He searched his memory for anything he could have sent to offend her, but came up short. A short, but terribly likely thought struck him. "Did Snoke contact you?"

She shook her head once more. "No, nothing like that. This is the preferred progression for all my clients. This is normal."

Ben looked down at her, and realized what she was getting at. "So...what? Am I better now?"

"I think that you have improved considerably," Kaydel answered diplomatically. "I think we still have some things to talk about, especially in light of recent events, but I think we can go down to once a month. That is, if you're comfortable with it?"

It was an out, and part of him wondered why he wasn't taking it.

"I think," Ben sucked in a breath and let it go, expelling all the fears and worries that had cropped in the last thirty seconds within a single exhale. "I think that's a great idea."

Intelligent and piercing eyes searched his face, before nodding sharply. "How does four weeks from today sound then?"

He hesitated and after a moment, admitted, "It sounds good."

* * *

"Hey, where's Ben tonight?"

Rey glanced over, frowning at Rose. "Not invited. I thought we agreed to reinstate Horribad-Friday-Sleepovers? At least once in a while."

The three of them (Finn included) had realized sometime around Rey's 20th birthday that they didn't hang out as much as they wanted to. Now that she and Rose didn't live together, Rose spent more of her time with Hux and Phasma, and Rey was usually with Ben. In fact, lately, the only times she saw Finn were the times he happened to tag along with Poe to diner trips or Taekwondo promotions, or the occasional game night the group had.

Too much had changed, and they wanted a bit of their past back.

They'd agreed to kick off sleepovers on a monthly basis, and since they were within a month of Halloween, they were kicking things off with a movie that promised to not actually be terrible -  _Halloween_. Thankfully Leia hadn't minded at all when Rey asked if she could host the two of them, and she'd even suggested they use a room Rey hadn't even discovered yet.

Really, the size of Leia's house was  _absurd_. Rey had a massive room to herself with an attached bath, and she'd been more than happy to just cuddle up with her friends on her bed and watch a movie on one of their laptops. That was, until Leia had shown her a room in the finished basement. It seemed like a cozy living room - a nice, plush sectional couch with built-in recliners. At first glance, the only thing that seemed a little over the top was a wet bar in one corner, and a mini-fridge Rey had decided to stock with drinks and (of course) ice cream.

With a closer look, though, she'd realized one wall - the one the couch face - was entirely bare. Leia had smirked slightly, and pointed to a projector hanging from the ceiling, and Rey had decided instantly that the woman was absolutely right about hosting the Horribad-Friday-Sleepover there.

"Oh we did," Rose chirped, catching Rey's attention. The two of them were reclined on the sectional, facing the wall while Finn got the movie going, "I was just wondering what he's up to. For some reason I figured he'd hang out with Hux and Phas or something since we're here, but they said he had plans."

Rey nodded, "Yeah, he had a therapy session earlier. He called me after - it sounds like Kaydel's cutting down on his sessions. I think he just planned on staying in with Luke tonight."

"Aw, that's nice," she smiled. "Hey, I never asked - how are your new classes going?"

Amazing. Wonderful. So much better? There were a billion positive words she could use, and Rey couldn't pick one, so she just ended up grinning.

Rose laughed, "That good?"

"I'm so relieved," Rey admitted. "I had lunch with Amilyn back at the beginning of August and she helped me pick them out. I just wish I'd figured out that I wanted to go into guidance counseling earlier - picking a major like this two years in might be a bit rough."

"Ooh, are you going to have to overload your schedule?' Rose winced. "I did that at the beginning of our Sophomore year and it sucked. I really hope you don't have to."

She shook her head. "Nah, I don't think so. Thankfully I got all the basic requirements out of the way, and I can count some of the other classes I took as electives, so I won't have to take more than my usual course load."

"Lucky."

Rey nodded, and smiled just as Finn walked around the sectional and fell between them, slumping into what looked like an absurdly comfortable position. "Alright, what are we talking about?"

"Rey's class schedule, mostly."

Finn groaned. "No, no way. None of that. You can't ruin a Horribad-Friday-Sleepover with college talk. My classes are a nightmare this semester and I don't even want to  _think_  about it."

"We're in the same classes," Rose said dryly. When Rey glanced at her curiously, Rose explained, "The engineering program keeps us to kind of a rigid schedule. Our sections for a couple classes are at different times, but we're studying the same things."

Another sigh left Finn, "At least we probably won't have to do grad school. Part of me wants to thank Snoke for fucking up Poe's med school applications - the poor guy needed a year off. I mean," he groaned again, "Obviously it's not a good thing, but I saw what sort of schedule he'll have when he gets into one of the physical therapy programs and guys, it's a  _mess_."

Rey gave him a sympathetic smile, patting his knee reassuringly, but before she could say anything, Rose piped in quietly, "So uh. While we're on the subject of significant others…" she hesitated, and if Rey wasn't mistaken, got a bit uncharacteristically shy, "I know I haven't really been upfront about it, and I feel bad about that because we usually tell each other everything but-"

"You're dating Hux and Phasma?" Finn shrugged. "Yeah, I mean, you moved in with them, we kinda assumed you three are a thing."

After a moment of silence, Rey snorted, "Rose, you didn't really think we were clueless, did you?"

"I wasn't sure!" Rose laughed, blushing, "I just- I didn't know if it was something you guys were confused about. I wasn't trying to keep it a secret, but….well. Phas was a bit nervous about us all being open about it. I guess Ben said something to her a few months back - y'know, when we went to the bar for Rey's birthday, Poe's graduation, and Ben's promotion? Anyway, I think that made her feel a bit more comfortable, so we decided it was probably time to be honest about it."

Finn shrugged, "What's there to be honest about? It's your relationship, and you don't owe any of us an explanation. I mean, if you're happy, I'm happy."

"Same here," Rey smiled. "Plus, you could do a lot worse than either of them. They're both pretty awesome."

A slow smile spread across Rose's face, and she said softly, "Yeah, they really are." She seemed to get a little sniffly, and Rey couldn't help but nudge Finn, and they both nearly tackled her in a hug while all three of them laughed.

Rose stopped laughing when they let her go, a long minute or two later, and whispered, "Thanks, guys."

"Seems silly to thank your friends for loving you, but okay," Finn rolled his eyes. "Now, are we watching this movie?"

Rey took a deep breath and sighed. "I love you guys. I missed this."

They both nodded at her, and a contented feeling settled in her chest.

Horribad-Friday-Sleepovers were officially reinstated.

* * *

Rey climbed up into the bus they'd rented, her face splitting into a huge grin as she recalled the last time the Dojang had taken a bus to tournament. She hadn't even been a senior belt at the time, and she hadn't participated - she wouldn't be participating this time, either.

Before, she hadn't been ready.

Now…

Now, she was ready to  _coach_ , and that felt crazy. Though, maybe the oddest part was how easily she fell into the role when Master Luke had taken her aside and assigned it to her.

"You gonna pick a seat, sweetheart?"

She glanced back and rolled her eyes at Ben, who seemed amused that she was just grinning like a nut at the inside of an empty coach bus. Shrugging, she asked, "Do you care where we sit?"

"I'm guessing the white belts are going to take up the back, and I don't want to kill their fun," Ben sighed. "I think we're better off sitting in the middle, or a bit closer to the front. Luke always sits in one of the front seats, and I think he might be strategizing or something. When I went into the office he was working on something, so I don't want to bother him."

Rey frowned at that. The man was up to something, and the fact that Ben didn't even know what it was had her curious. Concerned, too. Whatever it was, she had a feeling she wouldn't like it.

_Anything for you two._

But what exactly did  _anything_  entail?

She bit her lip and pushed the thoughts aside, not wanting to bother Ben with them. She'd bring up her concerns later, after the tournament. They'd have their hands full enough managing coaching for all the students with Snoke present and she didn't want to burden anyone else with her worries.

"I picked up lunches from Maz," he mentioned as Rey walked down the bus aisle and grabbed seats near the middle, maybe just a bit closer to the front.

Poe and Phasma would probably be joining them, as would Rose, since Luke had asked if she'd be willing to take care of photography and/or filming for the students who wanted a recording of their performances.

Rey smiled softly, reminiscing. "Just like last time."

"Not quite," he corrected, grabbing at her waist. Thankfully the others hadn't joined them on the bus yet, so nobody was present to see him spin her around and meet her for a long, deep kiss. Ben nuzzled at her cheek a bit before he pulled away, murmuring, "Last time you didn't know where your next meal was coming from. Things are very, very different now."

She settled into his arms, hugging him, and admitted, "I never told you about that morning, did I? When I showed up at the Dojang early?"

Ben shook his head slowly, tugging her closer, and she said softly, "He'd been throwing bottles at me." She heard a quiet intake of breath, but continued, "He was drunk, ordering me around, and I told him  _no_. I just froze and kept trying to remember how to block, but when one hit me I snapped out of it and realized Luke had never taught me how to dodge beer bottles."

"I should have killed him when I had the chance," Ben muttered matter-of-factly. "At least the bastard's in jail now."

Rey stared up at him, smiling faintly. "That's not my point, Ben. That's how my morning started, and I ended up running, and I got to the Dojang early, planning to hide in the girl's locker room. But you were there when I walked in, and you saw I was upset, and gave me a hug, then bought me breakfast. I felt so safe the minute I walked in, and a big part of that was because of you."

She paused, and then said, "A lot of things may be different now, but that hasn't changed."

Ben's arm tightened around her waist, holding her to him, and he finally smiled back, understanding what she'd been trying to say. A hand came up to cup her face as he kissed her again, this time slower and more gently, and she sighed against his lips.

The kiss deepened, Ben's tongue tracing along the seam of her mouth just before pushing in slowly and-

"Oh c'mon guys," Poe groaned dramatically. "I'm not sitting near you if you're just going to make out for the entire bus ride. Don't you do enough of that at home? And...in bars, apparently, if Master Luke's grumbling is to be believed?"

Rey pulled away laughing, as did Ben, who snarked, "Don't think I can't make you do push ups, Dameron."

"I  _know_  I didn't just hear my fellow Master threaten to misuse his authority," Phasma said dryly, shooting Ben a tired, but amused look. She'd followed behind Poe on the bus, and Rose was just behind her, facepalming on their behalf.

Ben coughed, blushing slightly as he took another step away from her. "Uh. No. Of course not, Phas. I'd never do that."

"Uh huh.  _Sure_  you wouldn't."

All five of them went quiet for a moment, then simultaneously burst out laughing, and not for the first time, Rey found herself thanking her lucky stars for the friends she had. They were goofballs, and maybe they occasionally made terrible decisions, but they were  _hers_.

She let out another giggle and waved them over, "Come on, sit by us. I promise we'll be good."

"I can't make the same promise," Phasma winked salaciously. "At least, not if the lower belts aren't paying attention. I have a feeling they'll all sit in the back anyway, but if they decide to sit by us we'll  _all_  have to be on our best behavior."

Rose snorted, "Best behavior? What even is  _best behavior_  for you guys? Just don't burn any buildings down?"

A throat cleared behind all of them, and Rey laughed at the mildly surprised expression Luke wore from the bus's entry. "Y'know, I came out here to make sure you two-" he gestured to Ben and Rey, "weren't desecrating this bus, and  _somehow_  you all figured out a way to do something even worse."

Rey turned bright red to match Ben at the mention of any sort of  _desecration_ , but Luke just huffed and continued, "Please keep in mind that the lower belts will be boarding the bus in a minute and none of them need to hear about any buildings that may or may not have been burned down. Neither does Kyung. That man will be more than happy to report a crime, and that's the last thing any of us need right now."

There was a little chorus of apologies from the five of them, and Luke grumbled a bit more, lovingly calling them "Idiot kids," before he left the bus, presumably to tell the other students it was time to board.

Phasma winced slightly at his reaction, and they all quietly took seats like the scolding children they were - Ben and Rey next to each other in one row, Phasma and Rose across the aisle from them, and Poe grinned, stretching across the two seats in front of Ben and Rey. Not a minute later, other students started piling on the bus, and Rey couldn't help but be relieved that Luke had caught the five of them and scolded them.

He was right - the last thing they needed was Kyung hearing from one of the students (or worse, directly from one of them) about any sort of illegal activities they'd gotten involved in.

As the other students (a mix of white, orange, green, and blue belts) predictably found seats in the back, Callum spotted her and turned a bit pink.  _Ah._  So, that was still happening, then. Rey still hadn't mentioned that to anyone, mostly because she didn't want Callum to be embarrassed. He was a really nice guy, and a harmless crush wasn't hurting anything, especially since he didn't seem to be trying to pursue it.

But...maybe she  _should_  have mentioned it to Ben, because he picked up on his reaction, especially when Callum stopped by them on his way toward the back of the bus, and said shyly, "Hi, Rey - ma'am...uhm. Do you think we could go over my poomse again before I perform it at tournament?"

"Yeah, of course," she nodded. "I think poomse is usually in the morning, so we'll get there and see when you're scheduled to go, and figure it out from there. Sound okay?"

Callum lit up and nodded back, and she could just  _feel_  amusement seeping off Ben. He thanked her quickly, not really acknowledging the other four around her, and gave her a little wave before he kept walking.

A few seconds passed by, and Rey stared firmly at the back of the seat in front of her. Slowly, she realized all four of her friends were staring at her with similar knowing grins. Poe had poked his head over the back of his seat to glance down at her, and he laughed.

"So uh...when did that start?" Poe asked in a hushed, but curious voice. "Callum knows you and Ben are a thing, right?

Phasma snorted from across the aisle. "I think that's been made pretty obvious. Anyone would have to be blind to miss that. The kid's just got a crush. It's cute, and he seems harmless enough."

After a moment, Rey chanced a glance over at Ben, hoping he wasn't annoyed by it. He seemed a little bewildered, and when he noticed her looking at him curiously, he shrugged. "I mean, I can't blame the guy," Ben laughed. "As long as he doesn't actually try anything, I don't see why it's a big deal."

Poe let out a full belly-laugh, " _Wow_ , you're way better about this sort of thing than Rey is."

"What's that mean?" Ben's eyes narrowed. "What, does one of the students have a crush on  _me_  or something?" He ran a hand through his hair and groaned, "Please tell me they don't, I really don't want to have to deal with that." He laughed softly, and quirked an eyebrow at Rey. "Once was enough."

She rolled her eyes and looked up at Poe questioningly, wondering if he'd noticed something she hadn't, but when he laughed and said, "Rey totally hated me for a while."

"You? Why would she hate you?"

Oh. Ben was clueless sometimes, and she couldn't help but giggle. Phasma and Rose must have figured it out too, because Rose smirked and Phasma snorted, saying, "Aw. Benji. No wonder Rey had to practically tackle you to get your attention. You are  _so_  oblivious."

It took him a minute or two, and they all sort of stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to connect the dots. When he did, Ben blushed. " _Oh_."

Poe winked. "Thankfully I figured out I prefer people who are a bit less intense, and who don't have their own rabid guard dog in the form of a cute brunette. No offense."

"None taken," Ben laughed.

"Some offense here," Rey protested. She turned red as an amused look graced her friends' faces and she realized just how shared that viewpoint was among them. "I'm not rabid."

Rose tilted her head curiously. "That's the part you take issue with? What about being a guard dog?"

Rey turned to Ben for assistance, but he just raised his hands in surrender even as it looked like his lips were carefully set in a neutral line to suppress more laughter. "I'm not the one on trial here," he said.

"Traitor," she shot back, before looking to her (now-pending-review) friends. "I'm not a guard dog either."

Poe and Phasma snorted.

"Sure thing, cookie."

"What? I'm not!"

A blinding and challenging grin was Poe's response to that. "So you're saying that if, say, I came up behind Ben one day in locker room and shaved his head-"

"Touch the hair and die, Dameron."

It was not, in fact, Ben who said that. Rey opened her mouth again, ready to defend her comment, but found that no sound came out other than a small regretful  _meep_  that did nothing in the uproarious laughter from all three of her friends and even her boyfriend.

Okay. So. Maybe they had a point.

* * *

In retrospect, Rey hadn't been to many tournaments during her time in Taekwondo.

She knew they happened with some regularity, enough that if they'd been a more competitive dojang they could reasonably expect to go to a different one every month. She also knew that both times she'd gone hadn't necessarily been great experiences, though she could concede that the first time around had been because of her own adverse reactions to meeting Poe and Phasma.

That was why she was determined to make sure the lower belts, at the very least, didn't hate the experience, because it seemed none of them were fully aware of just how exhausting the whole event could be.

Fortunately, Luke didn't require his students to take part in a tournament if they wanted to come. Rey hadn't necessarily been looking forward to entering another sparring competition and feeling the ensuing bruises for the next week.

The tournament was taking place in a large convention center this time around. The main hall was immense, possibly capable of fitting a city block in it, and the amount of people inside certainly reflected that. Packs of Taekwondo practitioners were bunched up at the entrance, and it was a fight just to squeeze through the gaps that formed in the crowd.

She had to stop herself from glaring at a particularly burly looking man with a sleek black and red letter jacket sporting a logo for his dojang and his name. The man had turned midway and he'd ended up knocking his elbow against her collar bone when she'd been fidgeting a way through.

There was something strangely familiar about him.

"Easy there," Poe said from beside her, seeing the venomous glance she was shooting, "let's get the kids settled in first before you go starting another brawl like the last time we were in a building like this."

Rey spared him a nasty glance, but conceded that he probably had a point. She made sure not to tell him that though.

After counting the various lower belts who'd miraculously not gotten lost between the entrance and the immediate space beyond it (there were a  _lot_  of people hanging around the doors, she couldn't help but notice), Rey tapped Callum's shoulder and started rounding the group to head in a direction against one of the far walls of the room.

Luke had taken Ben and Phasma and veered off as soon as they'd arrived to the administrative rooms, where various important people were apparently sequestered from the rest of the rabble. As was customary, many black belts of a certain dan and up offered their services to the organizers of the tournament.

Rose warded off a selectively blind group of green belts from bumping into her by audibly  _growling_. Clearly Phasma had been rubbing off on her. Or maybe she'd always been like that. Rey recalled those biting but memorable occasions where Rose's protective streak had shone through.

"Is it always this crazy?" Rose shouted over the mounting din of the room.

Rey made an incoherent noise of disagreement, but it was possible that it may have just come out as a grunt of annoyance.

After loudly and grossly clearing out her throat to get a loitering group of yellow belts out of their way, they reached a fairly empty patch of space. Almost immediately everyone dropped their various bags of gear, or, in the case of the lower belts without it, their changes of clothing. Tournaments were long, gross affairs and Rey had advised everyone to bring a change of clothes, because even if they weren't lucky enough to grab a shower before having to leave, a change of clothing and some ablutions would make all the difference for the ride back.

Rey looked to Poe, who was directing a couple of white belts who were carrying in coolers they brought for drinks. He looked perfectly at home telling a bunch of cheeky teens what to do, and for some reason that didn't surprise her at all.

"Uh, ma'am?" Callum said, stepping forward. Rey had remind herself that he actually wasn't that much younger than she was, but it was hard to do so when he could still barely look her in the eyes. "What would you like for us to do?"

There were other dojangs around, milling about. Many of them had splintered off into groups and were walking, talking, socializing, catching up with friends from other dojangs they hadn't seen or rivals they were planning on finally beating. White noise made of distinctly human sounds filled the air, and something about being there, left alone with a group of younglings, made Rey almost believe she had some sort of clue as to what she was doing.

She cleared her throat and turned to address the class. She hadn't been through a lot of these, but she knew enough about the general order of things to take a gander.

"Are any of you participating in breaking techniques?" she asked her impromptu students.

Their lone green belt and Callum raised their hands. Rey searched her mind for a name to put to the green belt's face, and hoped her panic wasn't visible on her face. Five minutes into her charge of the group and she'd already forgotten one of their names. Who the hell thought her taking charge of these kids was a good idea?

A loud clap shook her from her forming thoughts and she looked over to see Poe wearing his perpetual grin. "Looks like you guys will be going up first then!"

Callum and the other boy each turned as green as the latter's belt.

"Right now?" Callum squeaked. It would have been absolutely adorable if the boy's nervousness weren't so contagious.

Poe came up beside him and clapped him on the shoulder. Poe was average height, but you would have thought he was a giant judging by the weebly step that Callum took forward in response to that.

"Usually it's breaks, followed by poomse in the morning," Poe supplied. He was ignoring the annoyed glare Rey was shooting him, a feat which by now was probably second-nature to him. Just because they were friends didn't mean he wasn't still...Poe. "Afternoon is when sparring starts happening. Anyone here doing that as well?"

This time, all the colored belts raise their hands. Callum had somehow become their automatic spokesperson and after more shifting and uneasy glance trading with his compatriots, Callum said, "What's that like?"

Rey smiled warmly and hoped she could somehow conjure some more confidence that she was absolutely not feeling. An unsettling feeling started lingering in her stomach, but she ignored it. "It's not as bad as you think it is."

"With all due respect ma'am," one of the white belts, a plucky fourteen year old girl with a bob cut who went by Sam, "It sounds pretty fucking bad."

Rey didn't know at what point she'd picked it up, but she was fairly sure her face had morphed into that stony-faced and utterly terrifyingly blank expression she'd seen her various teachers use whenever they heard a student speak like that. She didn't really say or do anything, she just felt her jawline twitch and then pinned Sam in place with a look.

The girl jutted her chin out defiantly, and then self-preservation caught up to took the reigns once more. She averted her stare and looked down. "Sorry, ma'am."

After holding her in place by the force of her stare, Rey looked at each of the students once. "I get that you're all nervous, but trust me, it's really not as bad as you might think. Everyone gets jittery during their first time, trust me."

Someone said something - she didn't catch what, it was disguised under an obnoxiously loud cough - but while some started laughing, she caught the nervous glances on more than a few faces tighten with even more anxiety than before.

"Is anyone not participating today?" she decided to try instead. She wasn't actually ticked off with the kids (well, maybe a little), but she found herself longing for the days when the average age of the dojang weren't so long ago for her. It seemed unfair that she was both at once too old to properly relate to them, while being too young to garner any natural respect.

A trio of hands rose in the back. Rey looked at and catalogued their faces in her mind. "Good, you three will be helping everyone else today. We're somewhat small compared to a lot of the places here, so I'm going to need you guys to look after each other. If you see something you have questions about, just grab me or any of the other black belts."

Poe came up beside her this time, crossing his arms. He had an easy smile and a load of undeserved confidence to share, something Rey really wished she could partake in. The apprehensive and warning twinging in the back of her head hadn't lessened once since she'd stepped foot in the building.

"I know we're all here to have fun and enjoy ourselves," Poe said, "but we need you guys to behave yourselves too. I know everything here might seem strange or new, but behave just as if you're in the dojang itself while you're here. What we do here reflects on what our Masters have taught us."

Rey caught Rose's eye. The shorter girl had been looking between their group and seemed to scouting the rest of the convention centre for something specific. She inclined her head in the direction of the doors and Rey followed her direction. There was some sort of commotion occurring at that specific set of doors.

Then, like a stone shattering the placid surface of a lake, except in reverse. The people at the doors stilled. Like the Red Sea parting, people moved to the side, allowing a small procession of people to walk through.

Murmurs and voices were muffled or just stuffed quiet entirely as a small line of people walked into the main convention centre. Some were in dobok, but most were in sharp, professional suits, a small legion of administrative and martial arts persons. People bowed to them as they walked by, stopping what they were doing entirely to face and bend forward at the waist as if they had no more choice to it than breathing.

"Who're they?" Rey heard one of the white belts ask Callum. She heard because even though not all sound in the building had disappeared the question seemed to be on everyone's minds and Rey could practically hear it in their heads.

"Important people, I guess," Callum said, and she had to give him points for at least trying.

Someone shushed them, and the whispering and hushed exchanges fell to a nonexistent burr. Ahead of them, the procession continued, crossing the wide open space of the convention floor, stepping on to specially fitted pieces of mats that had interlocked together to provide something other than cold, cement floor. There was a long table in the middle, or a series of lined up smaller tables. The group of twenty or so masters, for Rey could think of no other group that would garner this much respect, all lined up behind it and individually took a seat.

One face stood out amongst the others, and Rey had to stifle her reaction. Too many people around to see, and none of them deserved to hear the litany of curses and swears that really should only be reserved for one person.

"Ten bucks if you go up to him palm strike his face," Poe said, startling her. He was now much closer than before, and she wondered how such a loud person could stand to be so quiet.

Everyone had taken to fiddling with their belongings, so it wasn't like they had an audience. Even so, Rey shot Poe a flat look.

"You know the point is  _not_  to get our belts stripped, right?"

"I dunno'," Poe scratched his chin and seemed way too contemplative of this seriously stupid idea, "Seems pretty tempting to me. He's already screwed me over enough by messing with my med school applications. Kinda' hard to care about Taekwondo when the guy derails your entire life because he's pissy we beat him."

"Language," Rey found herself scolding, before she did a mental check to make sure she hadn't been bodyjacked by a Tommyknocker.

Rose came over with a thoughtful look on her face.

"That's the guy, right?" she said, pointing to the subject their conversation, picking Snoke out easily. Rey wasn't surprised, even amongst others that were theoretically his equal Snoke seemed entirely too pleased to be there, like a cat finding itself in an aviary. That kind of undisguised satisfaction was noticeable.

"It's him, alright," Poe shrugged, and it was then she noticed just how tense he actually was. For all that his tone was joking earlier, Rey realized Poe actually was holding himself back from doing something far worse than just punching Snoke in the face.

Rose looked between Rey and Poe and seemed to realize the same. "In the interest of making sure you don't do anything stupid, why don't you tell me what I need to do with this?"

She raised the camera. It was a newer, higher quality camera that Luke had somehow acquired just for the purposes of this tournament. Much like Rey during her first tournament, Rose was to go about recording various breaks and forms of everyone she could in the dojang. Normally, that task would have been assigned to one of the lower belts who weren't participating in any events but seeing as how more than half of their group was comprised of a bunch of white belts, some of whom looked physically sick being surrounded by so many people, Luke had asked Rose if she'd mind coming with them.

Poe took Rose aside and began explaining the finer intricacies of tournament recording, the do's and don'ts, like filming other people and where not to go, and other menial pieces of information.

About five minutes after the group of masters entered, one of them stepped up and walked out in front of the long table. There was a mic stand there with the power and audio cables leading under and behind the table of masters.

The man, Kyung, she thought (it was hard to tell for sure with so many people milling about, walking in front of her), tapped the mic, eliciting some electronic feedback that thankfully died a swift and ugly death.

"Ten minute warning. Everyone, please begin lining up. Ten minute warning," the man said. The voice boomed all around them, rattling the inside of Rey's head, and for a moment she wondered if someone was about to get fired for nearly blowing everyone's eardrums.

With that said though, the man stepped back and took his seat with the rest of the masters.

Rey looked around, the nervous and anxious feeling starting to multiply as she realized that she hadn't seen Ben, Luke, or Phasma at all since they arrived.

Had something happened?

Rey tried not to think of what could have happened, so far out from their homes, and away from their families. She tried not to think of Luke's words about a plan that she wouldn't like. She tried not to think about the fact that she had a group of lower belts who were now looking to both her and Poe of all people as the higher belts who could give guidance.

Gritting her teeth, she turned to the rest of her dojangmates. Poe was looking around, searching the crowd for the same familiar faces she was, but his expression was grim.

Finally, right when she thought she was going to be sick with concern and responsibility, she opened her mouth and said-

"Let's line up, everyone," Luke called out.

Rey spun in place and there they were, alive and whole and very much not sorry for making her worry - a fact that she was planning on correcting them of later, when she didn't feel like hugging them so much.

Luke looked haggard, as if he'd been running harder than normal, while Ben and Phasma were already shepherding the lower belts to the main area. Dozens of other dojangs were doing so as well, and the convention center was filled with the trid trod of bare feet as various martial artists took up a seemingly random spot in place. Since there was no uniform ranking system between the schools, each dojang or school leader would begin a new line, with the rest of their students or class streaming behind them in a line, in order by rank. Some groups had so many people they required multiple columns of people.

Rey didn't miss how it was Ben and Phasma who stood together in the leading spot, and Luke stood to the side, in the spot typically reserved for the advisory position.

It took longer than ten minutes to organize everyone, and Rey had to remind several of the belts in her group to behave (seriously, what was her life?) but eventually they were all standing at attention.

Though she couldn't see it, she heard the sound of a chair being pushed back. A high, screeching sound, like nails on a chalkboard, except done on the inside of her head. Whatever milling and mulling and mulish pondering there was going on deadened and a lump of hot lead fell into her gut. She recognized the suddenly quiet atmosphere, and she hated it.

"Welcome everyone," said the voice of Alistair Snoke, echoing from the speakers built into the convention hall. "Welcome to the forty-fifth annual-"

Rey lost track of what he said, mostly because she had trouble not remembering the brilliant memory bubble leaking old sensations to her nervous system. The orders of a monster above them, the trembling in her bones as voices rose around like some cataclysmic rock concert, demanding blood and bone.

A loud shrieking piece of feedback hooked her and yanked her back to the present and Rey was aware of her lips pulling back in a vicious snarl. She remembered downing Unkar Plutt, the sticky feeling of blood on her hand as she did, and she so,  _so_  wanted to take Poe up on his earlier offer then it was almost scary.

She was afraid she wouldn't stop with just a palm strike to Snoke's face.

"My apologies for that," he said, once the feedback ended, "Many thanks goes to our esteemed technical staff though, for making sure this old man doesn't make everyone's hearing as poor as his own." Some chuckles rose from the crowd at that, and a few claps as well, even if the tone of the sentence said Snoke would much rather thank the techs if they'd hang themselves by the cables littering the floor. "Now, I'm sure you'd all rather get to the exciting parts, but first, please take a seat. Kneel, if you will."

Rey saw a few people in the crowd look around curiously, but this wasn't an uncommon occurrence from what she'd experienced. Speeches were common at both the beginning and the end, when awards were handed out, but that didn't still stop the hunted feeling from skittering across her skin once more.

She caught Ben's as he turned to look back at them. His stare was heavy and serious and he shook his head at her, as if to dissuade her from her first impulse, which was to keep standing tall because there was no way in hell she was giving Snoke the satisfaction of seeing them kneel.

She looked at Luke. He looked...happy. No. Not happy -  _content_. Unworried.

It struck her why, and the thought dug into her side like a knife in her ribs.

Luke trusted her not to make a scene.

Gritting her teeth, Rey smothered her impulse and joined everyone in kneeling. Seiza was tough for long periods of time, rough and achy and she just  _knew_  that was why Snoke had said to kneel. A bit of discomfort was nothing in the face of proper deference, after all.

Judging by the uncomfortable shifting she could hear happening in the rest of the audience, she was right.

Kneeling did allow her a better vantage point and she got to see Snoke, standing tall, dressed in a suit the color of folded steel. He'd cut his hair in the months since she'd last seen him, and he stood above them, with hair as gray as the spears he'd nearly had them skewered with over a year ago.

He waited for everyone to settle, and even if he wasn't looking over in their direction explicitly, Rey was certain he knew exactly where Luke and the rest of their dojang sat.

Snoke smiled, and she wondered how no one else could see the disease in that creature's mouth, the poison filtering out between breaths.

"It's hard, is it not?" Snoke asked the crowd, now paying obeisance to a man who'd only seemed to grow more animated the longer they stayed beneath him. "Kneeling? As humans we are so used to standing on our own two feet that the act of kneeling is even physically painful to us if we do so poorly."

He grabbed the mic and loosened from the stand. He began walking around. "We are often so assured of our own individuality, our own rightness, that often, we fool ourselves. We look forward, we see others just like us, and we think,  _I am treading the right path_. We look back, we see those following behind us and we think,  _They are following the right person._ " Snoke paused. "And then we get lost."

A rustle, a murmur through the crowd. Rey didn't dare tear her eyes away from Snoke, but she could practically feel the unease taking shape or form.

"We forget to look down, because that is where we came from," Snoke stated, "We forget to look up, because we don't think we can attain those heights. Kneeling, in effect, changes that. We cannot move forward or backward while kneeling, we can only look down or up!" He took a breath. "As martial artists, we must always be cogent of those above and beneath us. We are fellow men with each other while moving forwards, but as we ascend through the ranks of Taekwondo, we must always bear in mind our duty, our responsibility to each other, to those beneath...and above us."

There was not a breath uttered too loud, nor a ruffle of clothing too noticeable in the crowd. Some were clearly unnerved by the words, but a disconcertingly large amount seemed enraptured by them at the same time too.

"As martial artists - no, as  _warriors_ ," Snoke continued, banishing the title like it were nothing more than pittance to the poor, "we have an obligation to perform our best, to learn  _from_  the best, to accept the guidance of those who only wish to see us flourish! This tournament, like so many others before it, and so many others after, is merely an expression of Taekwondo! Some of you know of me and my opinions, and disagree, but know this!" He paused, seeming to take a hurricane breath for his siren's song. What came out next was low and sibilant, crooning and victorious. "I believe that the essence, the very  _soul_  of martial arts lies in betterment! In improving who we are by listening to those before us! By demonstrating our might before our peers and by surpassing our weaknesses!"

He turned then, and Rey knew he was talking at her. Or maybe Ben and Luke. Hell, he might even be talking to Poe for all that his laser-guided speech seemed to address them specifically.

"I believe in the strength of my teachers, in the strength that they taught me, and the destruction of my faults. I will never achieve perfection, for perfection does not exist." Here Snoke almost sounded...mournful. "But I believe in leaving a proud legacy, and delivering it to my students. I will raise them from the ground, so that they may stand where I am one day, and I will look down on them with  _pride_."

A pause.

"And  _nothing_  will stand in the way of me leaving that legacy."

Rey met the deviant stare of a monster turned man while applause broke out.

"Let us begin."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Coaching, a sketch, and standing up.
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> Onfire: Oh hey, yeah, Snoke's completely loco. Like, holy crap.
> 
> I like the comparison of monster and man, especially with that last lines. Monsters kill men, but men make monsters. It's a strange balance, and I've always been fascinated with the fine line and dichotomy of the two.
> 
> Attack: So. Close. SO CLOSE. We're alllllmost there. Also, yeah, Snoke is a maniac. I think my favorite part about this whole chapter, though, was the point Kaydel made. "Is him winning the same as you losing?"
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	52. Black Belt, Eighth Stripe, Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick explanation on how scoring works in Taekwondo sparring. There are usually 3-4 people, one sitting at each corner of a ring (generally you have to be a Black Belt to do scoring), and each of those people has a little device. Basically, they see a clean shot and press a button. If a majority of them see a clean kick and press the button, the person sparring gets a point. If, say, there was a nice kick and nobody clicked the button, there's no point even if there should have been.
> 
> Black belt sparring is usually more electronically based, with both fighters wearing gear that registers hits past a certain threshold in certain locations.
> 
> No songs for this one, but you can find a master post of our fanart and playlists [HERE](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/180401621072/beautiful-calligraphy-courtesy-of).
> 
> Final note: As of today we're apparently the longest fic for any of our relationship pairings. YAY!

Tallie winced as a roundhouse slammed into her front. The blue belt she was facing pressed forward, barely dropping her leg before she rocketed forward and started planting one kick after another into Tallie's side. Her opponent had her arms raise in a clinch, pinning her in place while she was essentially a sitting duck.

"Break away!" Rey shouted. She could tell it was futile but she had to try. "C'mon Tallie, don't just stand there! Break away and regroup!"

Tallie swapped stances, and raised her arms in a feeble motion of a block. Her opponent's kicks didn't lessen in strength but after a struggle Tallie managed to break away, literally backpedalling in an effort to put distance between her and her opponent.

Rey muffled the curse she wanted to swear, seeing the fear in the girl's expression. Being afraid was possibly the worst thing for Tallie and would only make her life harder for the next...thirty seconds? Shit, they were only halfway done.

"Keep your guard up!" Rey yelled, seeing that Tallie had dropped her hands. Whether the girl heard it over the explosion of noise and the rising roar in her ears was anyone's guess. The girl caught Rey's eye briefly and Rey made sure to pantomime the motion to hopefully get the idea across.

It was a moment's distraction though, and Tallie paid for it, because soon she was eating shin. She did manage to lean back and away from the high-section roundhouse that was the follow up, whipping her head back fast enough that the foot flew by with centimeters to spare, but then she overbalanced and had to spin around to avoid falling flat on her back.

The move took her out of bounds of the ring, prompting the judge to intervene. This early in the morning there were only lower belt matches happening and thus not a lot of people were watching the matches, which fortunately meant that Tallie hadn't bowled any spectators over, something that would have undoubtedly worsened the situation for her.

They moved back onto the mat and the referee issued the warning - for timidity or leaving the ring, Rey couldn't tell. She was too focused on watching Tallie's face. The younger girl's helmet had turned around a little from the spin and she had to adjust it, and it looked like she was breathing heavy through her mouth guard.

The judge signaled for them to begin again, and again the blue belt attacked as soon as she was given the go ahead. Tallie flinched and stepped back hastily, once again heading off the mat. Rey doubted the girl was even aware of it, but she was clenching and unclenching her fists and drying her hands on her dobok sleeves as if she wanted nothing more than to be done with the spar.

As expected, the judge intervened once more. Rey doubted Tallie could hear the man over her own runaway fears and thoughts but the implication in his motions and his tone was clear: she was being penalized for excessive breach of the arena limits. They both looked over and saw the judges re-adjust the point totals, removing Tallie's singly and luckily earned point from early in the match and adding it to her opponents.

Twenty seconds left.

"Tallie!" Rey called, catching a momentary lull in the racket. Tallie looked over once more. "Hands  _up!_  Move  _forward_!"

That was all she could say in the second before the judge brought his hand down and bellowed, "Shijak!"

This time her student brought her hands up in time, and even displayed admirable reflexes in blocking the incoming kick. The strike met her forearm, and Rey winced in sympathy. She was going to be feeling that for a while. Still, Tallie seemed to have taken Rey's advice to heart. She brought her rear leg up for a painfully slow front-snap kick, but it served its purposes. The girl's opponent swerved out of the way and practically waved as it passed her by, but Tallie followed that up with another one, moving her away from the edge of the ring and out of the danger of any more warnings.

She was still moving slowly, though. Too slowly. Rey shouted encouragement, reminding her to keep her guard up, but she couldn't help but frown at the way the match was going. They traded a few more kicks, the blue belt seeming far more confident and lax than before (and why shouldn't they be - they were five points up and Tallie was starting from zero all over again), but there was none of the same urgency from earlier.

Tallie half-heartedly lifted her leg for another roundhouse, but it didn't even reach her opponents thigh, let alone her abdomen.

Rey didn't need her black belt to recognize someone who'd given up.

Towards the end, it looked like Tallie was going to get back into it when she landed a solid strike to the blue belt's chest. Nothing hard, but the kick came out fast, and it made a good sound, so it was sure to have at least earned Tallie another point. Rey spared a look at the scoreboard to check, but was surprised to see that no one at the head table seemed to record any feedback from the corner judges' point markers.

It had been the cleanest shot of the entire match. Surely  _someone_  must have caught it?

After that, it was like Tallie just deflated. Both combatants struggled to swap and land kicks, but Tallie's movements were noticeably more morose than before, going so far as to even stop in place and take a kick when Rey knew she was perfectly capable of dodging it.

Half-time was soon called. Tallie bowed to her opponent and the judges, before heading in Rey's direction. She didn't even spare a glance to the scoreboard, which showed her losing at a visibly disheartening 7 to 2.

Rey stood up from the seat, and automatically grabbed the unopened bottle of water she'd taken from their cooler when she heard she was going to be coaching. She'd only participated in tournament sparring once, but that was experience enough to know that no amount of training truly compared to the live thing, including the abhorrent parching in her throat in between half-times.

"Here, drink up." She offered the bottle and then watched as Tallie swigged practically the entire contents in one huge gulp. Rey was silent for a few seconds, though she was mindful of the ticking clock before she had to send her student out to get her ass kicked again.

"Do you want to stop?"

Tallie stilled, and stopped her second guzzle of the water bottle, before looking up at Rey. "What? Why would I-"

"You're not trying out there," Rey said. It came out a tad too blunt to be called kind, but she couldn't stop some of the worry from coming through either. "I'm not going to help someone who doesn't even want to try."

"But I  _am_  trying, ma'am," Tallie hissed, and Rey wondered if that was tears or sweat or maybe both lining the girl's face. "They just...I just...I-"

Rey's expression softened. What did it say about her that she found herself repeating the same lessons with different faces to hear them?

"It's scary, isn't it?" Rey said softly. They had thirty seconds left on the clock. She was going to have to make this count. At Tallie's (reluctant) nod, Rey continued. "Not what you expected, huh?"

Tallie's face twisted into something raw and Rey was once again aware of just how young these kids were. "It  _hurts_ , ma'am," she said, averting her stare from Rey to look at across the mat at her opponent. "And I just...no one told me it was going to hurt. And I just, I feel…."

Tallie released an incoherent noise of frustration and it was clear that those actually  _were_  tears in the girl's eyes.

Sometimes, Rey forgot that not everyone had the kind of life she'd had. Rey'd been kicked in the stomach enough times during sparring to almost say she'd gotten used to the feeling, but that had never been truly scary, not compared to getting a glass bottle tossed it you by someone three times your size. Fear and pain had been her first friends while living with Plutt, and wasn't that kind of sick in its own way?

Regardless, Rey had never been able to relate to the simple fears of her student. That didn't mean, however, that she couldn't do something about it.

Nodding, Rey didn't even bother with permission, and pulled the strap holding Tallie's helmet in place, and pulled it off.

"Breathe," she commanded.

Tallie did so, gulping and tugging at her hogu to allow her the maximize range of breath.

Rey kneeled before her, eyes hard. She stared into Tallie's eyes for a few seconds, burning the look of a child looking for guidance into her mind because whether she knew it or not,  _this_  was what she signed up for.

"You're holding back," Rey told her, "and you need to not do that."

Tallie looked over to the closest corner judge for a moment before turning back to Rey. "Ma'am, what's the point if they're not even going to care? They aren't counting most of my kicks."

Ah, so she spotted that. Tallie was a green belt, but no matter what your rank or your experience, some things were just plain obvious. There wasn't that much of a skill discrepancy between Tallie and her opponent, at least from what Rey could see, but you'd think Tallie was horridly underperforming judging by the point totals thus far.

"They're not your concern right now," Rey said. She kept her voice soft, yet firm. "Forget about them. Do  _you_  care how you're doing?"

"Of course I do!" Tallie protested.

"Then stop kicking like you're eighty and show me, Tallie."

The girl made another ineffectual noise of protest. "It's not that simple!" she said plaintively, as if that alone would explain everything to Rey. "I can't just get better like that."

Rey looked at the clock, but the referee tapping his wrist already told her she was almost out of time.

"Listen to me, because I can only say this once," Rey rushed through, not letting something as simple as air stopping her speech. "Remember your white belt break? Remember how  _great_  it felt when you broke through? Remember how you felt like you could  _fly_  right after? Like nothing and no one could stop you?  _That's_ what you need to show me."

At the mutinous look Tallie was showing her, Rey decided to relent just a little. "Don't let something stupid like how someone else thinks stop you from doing what  _you_  want to do. If you want to kick that kid's head in, then  _do_  that, screw the rest of them. But you need to  _try_  Tallie, try harder than anything you've shown me so far. You've got the technique, you've got the strength."

Rey's nose flared as she breathed hard and hoped to somehow convey months of lessons and abject failures into her next few words. "Now, show me the passion."

"Time's up! Fighters, to your stations!"

Rey would have appreciated a little more time, maybe a week's worth of it, just so she could really address the problems Tallie was having, but the judges were already looking annoyed at having been held up by this as much as they had. Rey shot them a sickeningly sweet smile, promising hell and hailfire if they so much raised a finger regarding her holdup.

Screw the rules. Her student was more important.

(Really, it was a wonder Rey made it as far as a black belt as she had. That fact was becoming more and more clear by the day.)

With a resentful sigh, Tallie picked up her helmet and strapped it on as she stood. She shook her limbs lightly as she made her way to the center of the ring, warming up the rapidly cooled extremities. Her opponent had been waiting there for several seconds already, ahead of the deadline and Rey had to stop herself from glaring at the kid. Tallie was maybe fifteen and the other kid couldn't have been more than sixteen herself, but the sheer arrogance exuding off her was off-putting.

"Gyeorugi Junbi!" shouted the ref. Tallie visibly took a breath and brought her left leg back, and her arms snapped up with a whipping motion and what erupted from her was the loudest damn kihap Rey had ever heard from the girl.

Her opponent mimicked her, and Rey felt the crackle of something familiar pass in the air above them. She looked to the right, beyond the table at the front of the ring where the judges in charge of point-keeping were, and spotted him, a good fifty feet beyond.

Snoke was staring at her. She was sure of it. He was walking with a group of three other masters, passing by various rings and demonstration areas that were set up in the convention hall, and they seemed to just be strolling. People were instinctively moving out of the way of their path without even being asked to and Snoke was smiling his heartless smile and offering low words when prompted, but in that moment Rey was positive he'd been staring at her.

Shivering, she turned back to the fight, shrugging off every instinct telling her what a monumentally  _stupid_  idea it was to ignore that man. Tallie and her opponent were going at it, though it least Tallie wasn't running away this time.

Rey wished she could offer some better advice to her regarding what to do in terms of moves, but she'd spent the entirety of their break on other, more important stuff. Her guard was up, and she was certainly giving her opponent a hell of a lot more trouble than she had in the first half, but at the same time, with such a comfortable lead it wasn't like the blue-belt needed to try very hard.

That is, until, Tallie hujin-stepped out of the way and then immediately shot forward with a leaping roundhouse, physically knocking her opponent back after it landed squarely in her gut. It reminded Rey of the first time she'd ever sparred with Jess while wearing a hogu - planting kicks right into her opponent's ribs.

"There we go!" Rey found herself cheering. "Keep going, come on! Commit!"

But the blue-belt had already recovered, and was moving around faster than before, and Rey tried to hide her disappointment with that. She  _wasn't_  supposed to want people to get any more hurt than they needed to, but it was hard to be sympathetic considering how condescending the attitude had been earlier. In the corner of her eye, Rey saw the judges finally add another point to Tallie's total, now leaving them 8 to 3 in her opponent's favor.

Bouncing on the balls of her feet, Tallie yelled, daring, screaming, challenging her opponent, and Rey had to raise a hand to cover up her smile. The girl reminded Rey of herself way too much for her own good, but it was still amusing.

Practically dancing in place, the blue belt faked a left roundhouse of her own. Tallie responded to it immediately, changing her stance immediately and switching to open cover, and Rey bit her lip in anticipation, because she could tell this next part was going to hurt.

The blue belt brought her raised leg down and then immediately switched stance, back into closed cover and then spun in place, too fast for Tallie to respond to. The spinning back kick came in and blasted Tallie in the center of her hogu, literally knocking her a few steps back until she fell.

Rey didn't even have to look to know that the judges had already counted  _that_  and added another two points to Tallie's opponent's score.

"Tallie, you alright?" Rey shouted. She knew those could hurt, probably the most painful kick to receive short of a heel to the jaw and she knew for a fact that Tallie had never been on the receiving end of one of them.

After some hacking coughs, Tallie raised her hand in a thumbs up and scrambled to her feet. Her stance was much looser but Rey didn't fault her for that. Back kicks, when properly executed, were absolutely brutal. Rey would know. She'd watched one break Poe's arm.

Tallie tried her damned hardest after that, even landing a sequence of kicks after snagging her opponent in a clinch of her own towards the end. None of the judges gave her any of the appropriately due points aside from one trailing score, and Rey wondered if that last point was done out of cruelty more than pity.

Even so, when time was called and they bowed, Rey made sure to bow and shake the opposing fighter and coaches hands. After seeing the other girl's conduct during the match, Rey was a little worried but as soon as they were able to, the two girls walked off to the side of the ring and they started helping each other take their individual hogu and padding off, talking animatedly like a pair of sudden best friends.

Apparently beating the crap out of each other counted as getting to know each other.

Rey watched the girls, feeling a soft smile form on her face. In a way, she could even say she was envious of them.

Someone patted her on the back, and Rey spun around, all thoughts that'd been on leave before returning with a vengeance. She'd been so caught up in thinking about Tallie and the oddity of the scoring that she'd forgotten who else was prowling around the tournament, dressed in a suit bought from the profits of bloody nightmares.

Thankfully, it wasn't him.

"Not a bad ending for your first time coaching, huh? At least there's no broken teeth." Phasma said, smirking. She looked Rey up and down, catching on to the her nervousness, "Hey, what's up?"

Rey didn't look around. Looking around would have signalled that she was looking for him, and she didn't want that despicable creature to know she thought he rated that highly when she was supposed to be looking after the lower belts.

"It's nothing, just...nerves." Rey made sure to put a special stressor on the word, one she hoped Phasma would get the meaning of. The dawning look of understanding and cool nod told Rey she got the message. Then, something Phasma had said stopped her. "Wait, what? Broken teeth?!"

Phasma nodded. "Yeah, uh...it was a while back. Right before I joined  _The First Order_. I kinda' may have told a lower belt to not hold anything back."

Rey laughed, despite herself. "And let me guess, they ended up breaking someone's jaw?"

"Does their own count?"

Staring, Rey tried and failed to stop the mounting giggles. Really it was horrible, but she could just imagine it, see in her mind's eye a young man or woman fighting with all they could only to do something stupid like slip and fall, chipping a tooth in the process and that made her laughing about it  _worse_.

"God, you're just a terrible influence," Rey said lovingly, because surely there was no way Phasma's story ended just there.

Phasma shrugged. "Hey, not my fault I make life more exciting." Then she frowned. "There was something wrong with Tallie's fight, though."

Rey sobered up, glad to have someone else bring up that topic. "Right? I thought there was something wrong. I mean, Tallie gave her hardest and all but..." She trailed off, uncertain if she should give voice to the thoughts in her head considering where they were and who could easily listen in.

Phasma's eyes followed hers to the judges, and she hummed. "Noticed that, did you? It's been happening all morning. Luke's already been made aware, but there's not much we can do about it."

"Do we know why?"

"I can take a guess," Phasma snorted. She hesitated, and Rey glanced back to see an unfamiliar expression cross the woman's face. It wasn't  _soft_ , persay - Phasma didn't often do soft, especially in a place like this - but it was...inquisitive? "Did you notice anything else about it? Specifically, in the way Tallie did early on?"

Rey flashed back to the first time she met Phasma, too busy being annoyed with the woman who seemed just a bit too familiar with Ben to stop and recognize the merit in her questions. Thankfully, she'd moved on from that.

"Tallie was holding back. I told her as much. Gave her a...well, a pep talk," she finished lamely.

"Pep talk? Does that mean you scared the kid?"

"I am  _not_  scary," Rey groused, rolling her eyes. "If either of us is scary, it's you, and I bet you love that."

Phasma grinned. "You aren't wrong." After a pause, her tone became a bit more serious, and she nodded, "It's a common thing, holding back like that. For a lot of women in martial arts, believe it or not. You and I are a little different, probably because of how we grew up, but for the average woman in Taekwondo, it's not unusual to feel the need to hold back a bit."

"Seriously?" she frowned, casting a curious look in Tallie's direction, " _Why?"_

"Plenty of reasons, mostly to do with our culture. Y'know, women aren't supposed to be the angry, aggressive ones. We're supposed to be more nurturing, not out there beating the shit out of people."

Rey quirked an eyebrow doubtfully, looking back at the woman next to her. "That's bullshit."

"Well, sure, you and I know that," Phasma shrugged, "and I don't know what Tallie's reasoning was for holding back, but that's reasoning I've heard from others before." She nudged Rey's arm with her elbow, "You're doing well, coaching. Keep it in mind for the future. Most Dojangs don't have many women, and even fewer have woman who are Black Belts and Masters. You and I, and every woman who comes to train with us, are lucky to be in an environment where we don't need to hold back." She gestured toward Tallie, "Go make sure she knows that."

She hesitated for a moment, but...it made sense. She'd seen it herself, but she'd never really known the words for it. Nodding to Phasma, she said quietly, "I'll go talk to her."

Phasma cleared her throat. "I uh- I meant it. You're doing a good job."

She grinned, "Thanks, Phas."

* * *

After checking in with Tallie and greeting her newfound friend, Lana, Rey took note of the time and gave the girl the go ahead to grab some food after confirming she had the girl's cell number in case they needed to get a hold of her. Wincing, bruised, and probably a little embarrassed at being dismissed by someone not that much older than her, Tallie and Lana left.

She had to make the rounds again and make sure that the lower belts weren't up to anything dumb like needlessly antagonizing members from other dojangs, but after confirming that most of them were just sitting around the area where they'd settled around early in the day, Rey decided it was time she get some food herself.

The morning had progressed rather well, in her opinion. Breaks and poomse occurred without incident, though Rey had noticed that none of the students from Luke's dojang had done particularly well, with the exception of Ben when he was asked to perform Taebek.

It hadn't struck her as odd then - it wasn't uncommon for judges to be harsh during tournaments, but Tallie's match had only confirmed the worry that had taken root in the back of her mind. Whether it was direct intervention or something else, Luke's dojang was being singled out, and it was being graded particularly harshly.

She found Ben sitting on a bench outside the convention hall, in the atrium. It was a little weird walking around in her dobok while wearing shoes, but she ignored the foreign sensation as she made her way over to him. The room had immensely tall glass windows circling the entirety of one side of the building and wrapping around a corner, running out of her line of sight. Ben's back was to one of these windows, near where the sun was shining through. He was hunched over in his seat, looking over a notebook filled with what looked to be scribbles and scratches.

"Whatcha' got there?" she said, plopping down in the seat in front of him. She immediately frowned, finally noticing how no one else was sitting anywhere near them and the possible reason why. "How are you not cooking in your seat? It's way too hot here."

Ben looked up from his notebook. It wasn't cheesy if she thought he looked like he had a small corona of light around him when he smiled, right? It was just the sun and the shine and the absolute fact that she was in love with him. That's all. Not cheesy at all.

"Couldn't really think in the main area," he said, nodding to the room beyond the doors she'd just left from. "Too much jabbering, not enough talking."

Rey groaned. "Oh come on, not you, too. Just because you're a Master doesn't give you free license to dispense pithy sayings like that. Only old people like Master Luke have that privilege."

Ben looked vaguely offended. "I thought it was pretty good," he defended.

"Eh. I give it a three out of ten on the wisdom scale."

"There's a scale?" Shaking his head, Ben said, in a tone completely devoid of sarcasm, "How you and Master Luke got along without me around to mediate, I have no idea."

"Don't kid yourself, Ben. We just talked crap about you all the time." Rey grinned, remembering an old story. "You know, he told me about how the first time you got drunk you kept calling him asking about the cat. The one you didn't have?"

"I mean, yeah," Ben shrugged, before smirking. "Still better than your first time."

An absolutely wicked idea came to Rey then, and she got up from the her seat. Since she was in public she couldn't really do much, but she still had an advantage over him. That advantage being that she could still make him blush  _very_  easily if she used the right words, and really, it was his own fault for setting up such a perfect line like that.

"My first time? Oh Ben," she whispered, sitting down beside him. She made sure to keep her voice perfectly level and made sure not to attract too much attention with the absolutely devious smile she shot him, "I don't think anything can top that. Unless, of course, you're willing to try later?"

She made sure to say that last part as breathily as she dared, and she angled her body so no one looking out from the convention hall would see the absolutely sinful look she was shooting him.

Ben gulped. Audibly.

"I give. You win," Ben muttered, drawing out the thick silence with another visible swallow.

Rey had to suppress the mad cackle of glee at the sight, but she did allow herself a fistpump.

"You're going to be the death of me someday," Ben said dryly, but he brought his arm around her nonetheless. Despite feeling like she was cooking due to the giant magnifying glass of a window behind her, Rey appreciated the comforting motion.

"So, what'd I interrupt?" Rey surreptitiously tried peering at the notebook, but, dropping the pencil he was using, Ben slid the notebook away from her.

"It's a work in progress." He said, and there was something very innocent and bashful in that expression of his that if she weren't already doing so, Rey would have melted. He pursed his lips, seeming to consider something before he asked, "Would you like to take a look?"

Sensing his hesitation, Rey pulled away only slightly to nod and somehow impart her support.

He slid the notebook back in front of them, and he cleared his throat saying. "So, these are just rough drafts, but I got the idea after seeing Kaydel during my latest session and, well, here."

Squeezing his arm, Rey turned to the notebook and slowly opened the cover. Drawings and doodles stood out to her on the first page, about five in all. Curious, but wanting to see more, Rey started flipping through the pages. Some held one or two designs, others held as many as a dozen small ones, and they were vast and varied in looks and themes. Some, Ben had clearly devoted a lot of thought and work into, whereas others he'd clearly sketched a rough look before scrapping it entirely.

When she was done, Rey closed the notebook, taking special care not to fold the pages before closing the cover. She didn't want to say or ask anything, and instead nodded encouragingly at Ben, who'd suddenly looked down at his hands, as if searching them for an answer to a question he didn't even know.

"When I first met...Master...Snoke," Ben said, forcing the title out his mouth as if it were made of plutonium, "he wasn't like that. He was hard, sure, but back then, that's what I thought I needed. I wanted someone as different from Luke as I thought I was."

Rey smiled and waved to a group of passersby who looked over at them curiously before they turned to mind their own business. Lunch was already well underway for most of the attendee's of the convention, and she knew the convention centre had some stores available with quick snacks so she wasn't surprised to see people wandering around.

"It was only later that he suggested I get this." Ben jerked his head over his shoulder, and Rey knew he was referring to his brand. "I...my dad had just died and we'd just had our talk in the park, yeah, but...I still felt empty. Me and Luke weren't really talking much and it wasn't like I would have said anything even if he'd asked. Snoke, he-"

Ben ran a hand through his hair.

"Remember how I got when we were at Plutt's place?" Ben asked, his voice so quiet Rey had to strain herself to hear his voice. "I felt like that. All the time. Not angry, just...loose. Unconstrained, I guess. I started hitting others a lot harder during training, really hurting them. I stopped caring who was on the floor at the end. I just wanted it to be someone, me or them." Hesitantly, he asked, "Have you ever felt like that?"

"Yes," Rey said immediately.

The look he gave her was considering and sympathetic. "You and Master Luke…?"

Her voice was wry. "We had private sessions after that. He really likes to drive me crazy."

Ben chuckled. It was a little like sitting next to volcano on the precipice of eruption. All heat and quakes and dangerous in a way that appealed to the fool's sense of adventure in her. "That doesn't surprise me," he said, "Did he make you do the walk backwards for an hour without talking thing?"

Rey groaned. "Oh my god, so it wasn't just me? Where does he even come up with this stuff?"

"He told me his master made him do that, back in the day," Ben mused, scratching his chin. He was growing some stubble she couldn't help but notice, and she decided to stop her train of thought right there before her brain jumped to thoughts that absolutely did not involve wondering how it would feel on her skin.

(Too late.)

"Well, my grandfather was a jerk then," Rey said instead of voicing her thoughts. "And I can say that because he's my grandfather."

"I'll be sure to pass that along to the council of masters," Ben said soberly. "'Ben Kenobi was a jerk.' I'll even print it out and add it to the minutes."

Rey sniffed. "There's such a thing as being  _too_  sarcastic, Ben."

"I'll be sure to let them know that too," he replied just as easily. His smile lightened though, and something wistful and a little woeful appeared instead. "Master Snoke came to me after I knocked out a guy in a routine spar.."

Rey held back her choice comments regarding what a routine spar might have been. Something told her that spar was a lot looser of a word at the  _The First Order_  than it was in most other places.

"He said I had a place there," Ben reminisced, "said that he'd been careful about teaching me anything new because he didn't want me to do a runner, like a few other people had. But that I'd apparently proven something to him, shown him something he wanted to nurture." A pause. "I just had to show him I was worth the effort."

She was long past the point of hate. Snoke was wretched and loathsome thing dressed in a cloths and rags to disguise the horridness beneath. She needed no help in hating him.

It still hurt to hear everything, though.

"It hurt for a while after that. For years actually," Ben admitted, and he shifted, reaching up a hand to the back of his neck, as if trying to touch it. "He told me it was meant to go on my back, so that I'd never let anyone touch it again. He was- he  _is_  really into the whole mentality of 'don't show your back to the enemy'."

There was something in the corner of her eye, a flash of light, a reflection off of some lens or a phone. Rey caught sight of Rose waving excitedly before she disappeared behind one of the columns littering the area outside the main convention centre. She spared herself a moment to wonder about the idiosyncratic tendencies of her friend before turning back to her boyfriend.

"It sounds horrible."

"It was," Ben agreed, before cautiously saying, "but also? It kind of wasn't." At her perplexed look he elaborated. "You have to understand Rey, by the end I thought I was well and truly gone, but I never would have agreed to it if part of me hadn't been...content with the way things were. That's how he got me. That's how he gets everyone."

Ben took a moment to wrap his arm around her again. He brought her close and she let herself lean against his chest and sink into the strong steady sound of a living, loving, heart.

"Snoke doesn't make you do anything," Ben said, and she couldn't tell if he was talking to her or not. "He sets things up, lines them up in such a way so that you think you have no other choice, or that his way is the best one available, but he never makes a person do anything. He's as much a believer of choice as he is of control."

He looked to her, and Rey saw something worn and old in those eyes of his. "He prefers that people submit instead of going down fighting. It's why he's drawing everything-" Ben made a gesture that Rey took as referring to their ongoing conflict with the man, "-out instead. The only time that it's acceptable to fight is when you know you'll win."

The burning of the sun at her back was almost refreshing at this point, because at some point in this conversation she'd started feeling a familiar chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. "What about the club though? I mean, we didn't see much, but he was making you fight and-"

She murdered the words in her throat because the cynical look he shot her was more than enough of an answer.

"Until you showed up, Rey, no matter who came in and who walked out...Snoke won every night."

Looking at him, Rey could almost envision it. The future where Kylo Ren was all that remained. A sad, lonely thing shown neither light nor life and only brought out of its cage for the purposes of breaking people and spirits. She could see the wreckage he'd have molded with his own two hands, and once again, she thanked her crazy, stupid, impetuous friends for storming that stronghold with her because she knew they wouldn't have made it out alive without them.

Ben cleared his throat, and she took that as signal that he was ready to change the subject. "I don't want to just get rid of it," Ben said, and it took a second to realize he was talking about his brand, "As glad as I am I left that part of my life behind, I don't want to just pretend I was never part of it. But something Kaydel said got me thinking and I thought, why can't I make those experiences my own?"

Something young and triumphant shone through the timbre of his voice and he said, "Why can't I take back those memories from him and make them mine again?"

He opened the notebook to the last page, and pointed to a drawing. "Just because I have his mark on me doesn't mean I can't make it make it my own. I've already checked with my doctor and so long as I'm careful with who I have do the work, I should be good to get a tattoo." His expression turned bashful as he saw she was staring. "What do you think?"

It was a fairly simple drawing, she noted. A circular base that extended and reached up, ending in curved pointed tips, with small grooves making them almost like wings. In the center rose a small squarish trident, a little like a fleur de lis. A single circle and line at the top reinforced the avian impression and suddenly she realized what she was looking at.

A falcon.

"It's still a work in progress," Ben said, looking unexpectedly nervous, "I don't even know if I'll use this one or any of the others but I wanted to put something down, bounce ideas off-"

"I love it," Rey cut him off.

Her tall, unintentionally sap of a boyfriend seemed to sag with relief. "Good. That's good. I- I was really happy with this one."

"You dork," she said fondly. "What? Did you think I wasn't going to adore it?" She pinched his side, delighting in the nervous twitchy jerk of his body when she did. Then there was a beat of silence, and she asked, "When are you getting it done?"

"Soon." A far-off look came over him, and something a little wistful. "I was also thinking we could use it in the dojang. As part of our rebranding, once everything is over."

Rey's response was interrupted by someone using the speaker system inside the convention hall to announce something. She didn't catch the entirety of the message, but she did hear  _fifteen minutes_  and could only assume that's how long it was until events resumed. As if on cue, her gut released a loud and petulant curl and Rey blushed, looking away at the inquisitive glance Ben shot her.

Of course, Ben once again proved himself the best boyfriend on the planet by reaching under the table and bringing out his lunch bag. He didn't even say a word, he just unzipped the teal colored fabric and took out an apple, some hummus and carrot sticks, and what looked like a chocolate bar.

"I had a feeling you were going to miss out on eating," Ben said, grabbing another apple from inside and taking a sallivatingly crunchy bite out of the skin. "Here, let's share. I'm not doing much this afternoon and I've got some extra snacks I picked up from Maz's if we get hungry later."

She  _had_  been planning on picking some more food up from the local stores, but hanging out with him had seemed like a much more palatable idea.

And bless this man, he even had her favorite chocolate on hand.

It was awfully intimate, sitting with her him like this, in plain view of everyone passing by. Maybe it was because they were both wearing their dobok, or maybe it was that every now and then people heading into the convention hall would shoot them odd looks, but regardless, it brought to mind how she felt early on - how she'd always been hyper-aware of Ben's presence whenever he was in her vicinity.

They ate in relative silence, with Rey pondering over Ben's words - particularly the last ones he'd said before they were interrupted by the announcement.

_Part of our rebranding, once everything is over._

After a few minutes of silent crunching as she chomped through the apple and hummus, making sure not to let anything fall on her miraculously pristine dobok, another flash of light caught her eye. She searched the area for Rose again before she reasoned that the girl was probably spending the lunch break with Phasma.

"Head's up," Ben said, voice low and suddenly urgent. "Incoming."

She turned to look where he was facing and had to grip the table to stop her first reaction from putting an unpleasant end to this trip of theirs.

Snoke was headed towards them, just passing the threshold of the convention hall. There were no other people hanging around him this time, no remora hanging to his shark's smile. He strode with purpose and patience and came to a stop in front of their table, looking down and around for a moment for he addressed them.

"I hope you have been well, my student," Snoke greeted, and Rey struggled to not shiver. The heat on her back seemed blazing now and yet her front felt a chill, and emptiness of warmth that reminded her of nightmares and the impossible depths of the darkest caves. "Good tidings to you as well, Miss Kenobi."

There was a thunderclap of tension twanging in the air above them. With saintly patience and control, Ben rose from his seat. Then, looking like he'd rather be anywhere but there, Ben bowed. It could barely be called a bow, but the churlish smile that bloomed across Snoke's face told her it was everything he could have wanted.

"...Master Snoke."

Then, as if moving with great deliberation Snoke turned his head to meet the heated glare Rey had automatically defaulted to when the man had interrupted their lunch.

"Well?" Snoke drawled, the words seemed to slither out of him, hanging on her ears like slow and thick maggots.

Swallowing her pride and self-respect, Rey rose and followed Ben's example. She straightened as soon as possible, and glared defiantly at the old man who seemed to delight in extracting empty platitudes from those around him.

"Better." Snoke nodded, seemingly satisfied with the example. "I have merely come to inform you that I have just spoken with Grandmaster Shin Kyung at great length regarding the legitimacy of your stay with Master Skywalker." His sallow lips parted and Rey saw teeth as he smiled. "It would seem no one had informed him of the circumstances that brought you to Skywalker's instruction."

"That wasn't your story to tell...sir," Ben said diffidently. Rey could see the veins in his neck pulsing angrily he looked at his tormenter. She wondered if he was also thinking about leaping across the surface of the table, and seeing just how well a seventh dan would do when confronted with a beast of his own creation. "Master Kyung has been performing his investigation just fine,  _without_  outside intervention."

"I'm sure he has," Snoke agreed. "I was merely doing my due diligence. Remember, my student, it is our responsibility to right any wrongs we come across. Integrity is a double-edged blade. We must not only seek to do what is right, but right that which is wrong."

The clacking sound of grinding teeth that followed that statement made Rey think Ben was liable to smash a tooth the longer he stood in Snoke's presence.

"There is nothing wrong with saving someone from an abusive situation," she interjected frostily.

Eyes like the reaper's shining blade met hers. "That was not for Luke Skywalker to decide. His duty was to immediately report his suspicions to the relevant authorities. He was not to intervene unless you were in danger of life and limb." Snoke snorted. "I have spoken with Unkar Plutt. You most certainly were not."

"I'm not talking about Luke," she snapped.

A single, thin eyebrow raised, and the man's face expanded into something new and horrendous. Laughter. "Hmmm? Do you truly fashion yourself a  _savior_ now _?_ A  _hero?_ " Snoke shook his head. "The arrogance of youth will never stop astounding me."

"You were making him fight people!" Rey said, somewhat shrilly. "In a cage!"

The deviance and mockery drained out of Snoke's countenance in the face of this blatant challenge. "You will find, Miss Kenobi, that it is not advisable to throw such slanderous accusations around lightly."

"Lightly my as-"

Ben's hand came down on her shoulder hard, but it was enough to stop her. "Rey, that's enough."

Snoke nodded, pleased. "I see that you at least have not forgotten how to comport yourself amongst your superiors, my student. That's good."

Something a little like pity flashed across Ben's expression before it disappeared.

The announcement arrived, signalling that they were about to start the main events once more and for prospective fighters to please seek out the various stations where rounds and pairings were being posted. A practically visible thrum of excitement seemed to shake the building, like a great lumbering beast being roused from its sleep.

The smile on Snoke's face turned stolid and satisfied. "I do enjoy the sound of a full crowd. There is something so very sanguine about a building full of martial artists, wouldn't you say?"

Before Rey or Ben could respond, a fourth, unexpected voice interrupted them. "Despite our differences, I find myself agreeing, Alistair. I do agree, it's very hopeful."

They turned to see Master Luke approaching them. It took Rey a second to place his expression. Self-satisfaction.

"Master Skywalker," Snoke intoned, and if it was possible to convey hatred through two words, then he'd managed it. "It's improper to address me by anything other than my title."

His posture straightened, and Rey got the impression the man was suddenly looking down on Luke, asserting some invisible superiority over their slightly lower-ranking master. Behind Luke, the last of the stragglers that had been roaming the halls of the convention centre were heading inside, leaving just the four of them standing alone in the hallway.

Luke looked past Snoke to his students. "You guys' job here is done. Why don't you get going? I know you've still got some kids to coach before black belt sparring starts." He looked at Snoke once more, who seemed intensely aggravated just by Luke's presence. "Me and Alistair have to talk."

"There is but one thing that you can say to me that I am willing to listen to," Snoke whispered. The words were liquid nitrogen in a hailstorm. "And you are not nearly desperate or intelligent enough to do so. No, not yet."

"What is  _wrong_  with you?" Rey blurted out.

Snoke's face turned to her in controlled, yet jerky increments, as if on a ratchet. "What did you say, girl?"

All three men stopped their posturing and suddenly looked at her. She powered through the instinctive urge to shut up and let the adults keep talking. She'd done that enough in her time with Plutt and if she'd learned anything in the time since then it was that when it felt like the world was shunting you off to a corner, that was when you were supposed to speak up.

"This!" she said, gesturing to their group. She followed that up by pointing to the convention hall. "That! What is wrong with you that all of this is even worth it? Why is it so important to you that you beat us? You have everything you could want! You're rich, you're a grandmaster, people...people look up to you. They respect you. You have people like Ben learning from you and you're just- just spitting on them so you could get back at us for nothing!"

She wanted to grab this man and scream in his face for hours, days, decades; however long it would take to get her point across.

"Nothing?" Snoke repeated. He tasted the word, as if it were a foreign curiosity. "Nothing? Girl, you know  _nothing_  of what you have done to me and mine. I am repaying a debt due from decades past. You are  _nothing_  in this story. Your faith in your master is  _nothing-_ "

"That's enough, Snoke!" Luke all but shouted, and Rey could see a few heads turn from the entryway to look at them. "Your quarrel is with me. Leave them out of this."

Snoke turned on them and there was something maddened, raw, and hateful to his stare. So old it made the sun look young, so fresh Rey could practically taste the bile and the tar in her throat, and she realized that she was lucky, so very lucky that Snoke had never looked at  _her_  like that.

"She made it her business when she interfered in mine, Master Skywalker," Snoke vowed. "Just like you, she invaded my abode. Just like you, she set fire to my life. Just like you, she took  _him_  from me."

Was he...was he even talking about Ben?

Slowly the cesspool of blades receded and Snoke's casual, affable, cruel visage returned to its normal setting. A lingering trace of his previous persona remained, and when he spoke it was with a patient kind of hate, the kind that waited until you were on your deathbed before injecting hydrochloric acid through the IV. With a smile.

"You took him from me," Snoke affirmed. "You  _stole_  his legacy. My legacy. I thought when I'd learned of his bloodline continuing I might be privileged to see it flourish, as it should have all those years ago, but you  _failed_." Snoke shook his head, and looked to Ben. "You could have been great, Kylo Ren. You could have continued the story of a great man."

Rey felt Ben's minor shiver at hearing that name after so long. At the almost wistful affection that lied therein those words. For a moment she was worried for how he would react.

And then Ben looked Snoke right in the eye and quietly said, without a hint of fear or tremble, "I am my own man."

Snoke shook his head. "Arrogance. You are just like Skywalker. A slave to your heart."

"There are worse things to be in life than happy, sir."

"How does destitute sound then, boy?" Snoke practically snarled, before composing himself once more. "The investigation is well underway. Even you will be unable to stop the federation from uncovering the ugly truths of your actions. Tell me, Kylo Ren, do you remember the faces of those who fell before you?" Something harsh and knowing shone through his smirk. "Or do you just not care? They remember you, boy - they remember the face of the man who broke their bodies. Do you remember theirs?"

Ben looked shaken, and Rey's heart swelled with pride at how long he held out before Snoke. She was just about to intervene when Luke did so for them in the form of a loud hacking cough.

"I'm sorry," Luke said through the ostensibly histrionic fake coughs, "I seem to have come down with a sudden and inexplicable case of aversion to bullshit."

Snoke's lip curled unappreciatively. There was a disturbing twitch to his cheek, as if his facial muscles were unable to recognize anything more than a sneer. "You say as much, and yet you still tout your school to be one of peace, when you yourself are directly responsible for everything happening."

"...My father saved my life that night, Snoke. He did a good thing, at the end."

"You mean you traded his life for yours!"

Luke shook his head. "I pity you."

"And I will end you," Snoke spat. It was the most out of control Rey had ever seen him, even including when she'd seen him hanging from his throne above the ring.

"Even if you do link Ben to the fights, that would only bring to light your own involvement with the operation. Kylo Ren was the notorious student of Alistair Snoke after all." Luke narrowed his eyes and shook his head. "And you would hate to see the legacy of Anakin Skywalker rot in prison, wouldn't you?"

A face emerged from the convention hall and Rey realized that she and Ben were possibly terribly  _terribly_ late to their respective coaching assignments. Even worse, she recognized the person coming.

"Uh, Master Luke-"

"The affairs at that location were a private, but perfectly legal affair, Master Skywalker. That, I've recently made sure of." Another disdainful smirk. "I cannot say the same for your actions that night. After all, your family has a history with burning buildings."

"Master Luke!" Rey cried desperately, seeing the person come closer.

"You know what Snoke? You can go fuc-"

A clap of thunder stopped Luke from finishing that damning sentence, right as Master Kyung arrived fully. Everyone looked to Ben, who'd slammed his hand down on the table with such tremendous force Rey could still feel the vibrations through the welded pieces and the surface of the table. Ben stood tall, red-faced, but his eyes were flinty as they fell on the two bickering old men.

"I apologize for that, but it was necessary," Ben said, perfectly professional and his eyes trained not on Luke, or on Snoke, but on Kyung, who stood to the side, eyes calculating and running equations automatically as it took the scene in. The next part looked like it pained Ben to say. "I understand that we have our differences, I understand that there is conflict but. We. Are. Masters." He gave them a moment to let that settle in. "We have a duty to our students, and that includes setting aside our differences in public settings."

It was hasty and rough, and anyone with even half an inkling as to the subject of the conversation would know Ben was completely making it up on the spot just so Luke wouldn't dig himself any deeper with Kyung.

Looking properly abashed, Luke cleared his throat and took a moment to compose himself before nodding. "You're right, Ben, I apologize."

Luke made no mention of the same for Snoke, which didn't surprise Rey at all. She had clearly underestimated the shared history between the two. Snoke, for his part, alternated between looking at Ben and Luke for a few seconds before shaking his head and leaving. There was no snide remark - no parting words to denote his departure unlike basically every other interaction Rey'd had with the man, so she knew that whatever had just happened between them was serious.

"Master Skywalker," Kyung said, finally speaking up. "You realize, of course, that this doesn't look good for you. The behavior you and Master Snoke just displayed was-"

Luke sighed and preempted him. "I understand, Shin."

Kyung looked absolutely livid, which for him just meant that his brows were furrowed an incremental half a centimeter further than his usual. "Please address me by my title,  _Master Skywalker_."

The way he stressed Luke's own title was clearly meant to be a reminder of just who was higher-ranking than who. Luke, for all that Kyung held his life in his hands, just looked bored.

Without waiting for further response, Kyung about-faced, but not after sparing Rey a nod and Ben a slightly less chilly smile than normal.

"Well, we should get going, kids," Luke said, at last. There was a definite and absolute bizarre cheer to his demeanor, one that absolutely did not fit with his earlier actions. "You've still got some rounds to go before we're given the all-clear to head out."

He made to leave, and Rey wanted to stop him. An ocean's worth of questions were roaring through her ears, and she wanted nothing more than to stop and interrogate her master on his absolutely insane actions. Usually he was a lot better about keeping his temper in check, or about not  _swearing_ at a Taekwondo event like some teenager who just learned a new bad word. She could have just reached out and asked him, and she was almost positive he would have told her.

She reached for him...and stopped. Because, as hateful and charged as that argument between Luke and Snoke had been, there was a certain lightness to his gait as he walked away, a jaunt that she couldn't ever remember seeing in his stance except for a few scant times.

Looking to Ben provided no indication.

"Don't look at me," he said, shaking his head. "I'm just his nephew."

* * *

It was like fate had arranged things.

Well, fate, or an old man with a decades-long grudge against Luke Skywalker. Rey would have given it a coinflip's chance of either option, if the coin had two heads. At some point, it began to feel like all their interactions with Snoke were like that.

Rigged.

In any case, when Rey learned that Luke's dojang was set to face  _The First Order_  in black belt sparring, she could barely muster some level of surprise that extended beyond an eye-roll. Really, some things were just too predictable.

They'd finished the rest of colored belt sparring quickly enough, and the secondary and tertiary rounds for that were happening right now, all around them. None of the the students from Luke's dojang had advanced, not in the face of the blatant misrepresentation of scores happening across all the ring matches. Rey also couldn't help but note that she and her kids always ended up in the same ring, with the same set of judges.

It had been so blatant, even one of the white-belts who'd been shadowing Rey following her return from the most stressful lunch ever had commented on it.

Snoke really did want them to know it was him responsible. Part of Rey was galled and infuriated that he'd dare bring his grievances against the lower belts who'd done absolutely nothing wrong. But at the same time, it removed some of the pressure from her. She could focus more on making sure her students didn't hate the experience instead of worrying about winning an impossible fight.

None of the fighters they faced seemed in on the scheme - they just let the chips fall where they may, though there was one person (Callum's opponent) who'd protested the unfair scoring loudly and profusely, to the point that  _they'd_ gotten a warning and Callum had gotten the point.

Of course, with everyone else eliminated, it meant the whole Dojang was available to watch the black belt sparring matches, which of course, were what really drew in the crowd. Most fighters didn't care to scout the lower belts because most serious competitions held the most competitive fights at the black belt level. There was no delineation of rank - anyone with a black belt could compete against anyone, regardless of dan level.

Rey observed the ring area. It was larger than the lower belt sparring areas, massive in size, and it reminded her of her first tournament, back when she'd been interrupted by a chatty blonde who'd bothered Rey incessantly into talking back. She smiled, remembering the day.

Simpler times. Simpler dreams.

"Is it always this intense?" said a voice beside her, and she turned to see Rose, looking curiously through the lens of the camera at the gathering before her. "Because those guys look like they're out for blood."

Rey looked across the mat to where the members of  _The First Order_  were congregated. They stood silently, about a half dozen in all, hovering in a semi-circle behind a chair where a familiar looking man sat. She thought he was one of the men they'd fought the night of the fight club fire, but it was hard to place his face in between the acute memories of life-defining terror, the screams, and the sharp pointy things threatening their deaths.

Faces had been the last thing on her mind at the time.

"It's not usually this bad," Rey conceded, before nodding in their enemies direction. "It's just...Snoke."

Rose narrowed her eyes in the man's direction. He was standing in front of their chosen fighter sitting in the chair, incredibly close, and was looking directly down at him, like a master to a chess pawn. Rey couldn't hear what he said but she could tell it was coming out of the man fast and brutal, repeating over and over like some mantra to be memorized - written in blood and inscribed in bone.

A loud growl interrupted Rey's observation and she looked to her friend.

"Sorry," Rose muttered, turning a shade pinker than she was before, "I kinda' missed out on lunch."

"Wait, what?" Rey thought back to when she saw her earlier. "I thought you'd gotten lunch with Phasma?"

Rose shrugged, and before Rey could investigate further, the referee was calling fighters to the center of the ring.

"Good luck out there," she heard Ben tell Poe soberly.

The day's tournament was a single-elimination individual style, so there was no need to have teammates to compete. Just as well, as they would have been at a disadvantage with only two members able to fill out a men's black belt team anyways.

Poe already had his mouth guard and sent him a thumbs up.

Snoke finished his sermon (and it was undoubtedly a sermon, the man probably couldn't go ten minutes without attempting to lecture some hapless student) by tapping his right forearm pointedly.

Rey looked to Poe. She remembered the cast he'd been wearing not that long ago.

A chill settled into her stomach.

"Ben," she hissed, suddenly at her boyfriends side. In the ring, the fighters were bowing to each other. "Poe's arm. Snoke knows about Poe's arm."

Ben's eyes widened momentarily in realization before he turned back to the fight. But it was too late - the referee had just started the match and suddenly both Poe and the other man were  _off_  like rockets, leaping, slamming, checking, moving, ducking, through kicks, counter-kicks, feints, and ploys all at a speed that would have been awe-inspiring any other time.

Poe was  _good_  at sparring, Rey remembered, and some of the fear that had taken clutch loosened its grip, if only slightly. Whereas Ben was an unstoppably sledgehammer in a fight, Poe went in the other direction. He would never have the kind of body composition that would allow him to compete with a heavy weight professionally-trained man like Ben, but he was fast, and he was the guy who could land about half a dozen kicks in the space of a breath and still have time for tea, too.

They clashed, and then broke apart immediately after, ducking their heads as kicks as fast as bullets aimed at spots where their heads would have been. Poe retreated from the follow-up series of advancing strikes, all aimed a few inches away from his body, a fact that would have been odd to Rey had she not suspected the actual plan.

They were aiming for his arm. The one he'd broken before.

The doctors had given Poe the go ahead to take part in Taekwondo again months ago, but they'd said that he was lucky that he was still able to retain enough functionality in that arm for it at all. A few inches higher, and there would have been a good chance that Poe would never have regained full use of the arm, ever again.

A re-break of the same intensity would practically guarantee such a result, Rey had no doubt.

No one would blame Snoke. After all, injuries happened all the time in a tournament. At best, the offending party would be immediately disqualified from the tournament if they were found to be acting in malice, pending a review of their belt status and possibly a ban. Considering who'd set this match up, Rey doubted it would even get that far.

A particularly vicious hook caught Poe in a reflexive block with his wrist as he knocked the kick out of the way. Poe visibly winced, and judging by the immediate worsening of his stance she could tell the pain was distracting enough to ruin his concentration. Shock and panic seemed to set in after a second, almost debilitating axe kicked almost broke his clavicle and Poe fell to his knees, clutching at his arm.

Rey's breath caught, and she was about to leap in and put a stop to the madness when she heard the blessed whistle and shouting and all-around wonderful signs of the referee stopping the fight.

"-out! Time  _out_ , dammit!" Ben was shouting. His scar seemed to pulse in time with her own heartbeat, and rage practically radiated from his person as he stood from his seat.

The referee made a motion and shouted again, and she could hear him issue a warning for language or some other meaningless crap.

Rey looked across the mat to see Snoke, leg crossed, observing the whole affair like some elitist opera enthusiast. This was a show to him, and he, the director.

And then Ben did something she really shouldn't have been surprised by.

"We forfeit!" Ben yelled. Several people around him, stopped what they were doing to juke their heads in his direction. "We forfeit! Surrender! Give up! Just get him out of there!"

There was a moment of completely silence, a moment so beautiful and tender and absolutely appropriate Rey wished she'd been the one with the camera this time just so she could record it herself. The moment was shattered by Rey realizing one more thing.

Snoke looked completely dumbfounded.

It was hard to tell, considering his normal placid mask of untouchability, but she, who'd had nightmares about his face and the horrors lying in his head - she saw it. The open mouth, and slackened looseness in how he held his body...Snoke was for once, caught by surprise.

And he didn't like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Coming full circle, burying a horse, and a new answer.
> 
> WRITER'S NOTES:
> 
> Onfire: A lot of Snoke stuff. We tackled a lot of things, hinted at some others...and also included something I absolutely loved, which was Ben standing up to Snoke and refusing to play this game. I wonder if anyone can tell what Luke's up to? He's been a bit odd these past few chapters hasn't he?
> 
> Attack: We'll get the briefest break in the next chapter, which will (hopefully) be up this weekend. Onfire wrote almost every part of this one, and I'll be handling most of the next one...things are, as you can probably tell, reaching a boiling point. Or, hell, maybe the pot's already boiling. ALSO, if anyone can figure out the "burying a horse" part of our next I will be so incredibly impressed.


	53. Second Dan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter until the main fic is over and we're hoping to have it posted by the end of November. Once it's up, we're taking a solid week off to write the six-part epilogue because we want to be able to post one epilogue chapter a day.
> 
> Playlist and Fanart found [HERE](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/180500607587/beautiful-calligraphy-courtesy-of)...and there is an in-text song.

The referee blanched at Ben's words. Rey couldn't really blame him. Forfeits, especially ones so early in the match, were uncommon. The idea seemed as incongruous to him as it did to everyone else watching. Various people in the audience surrounding the ring, shuffled in place, as if unsure whether they should bother spectating the shitshow to follow or if they should listen to every ounce of self-preservation that was screaming at them to  _move_.

In the ring, Poe got to his feet. He was breathing heavily and was angling his body such that his right side was furthest from his opponent, as if he didn't trust the man not to continue his attack. Snoke's fighter seemed just as perplexed as everyone else, though this was perhaps a bit more nuanced.

"What? What are you doing?" the man said after taking out his mouth guard. He looked back to his master, who'd begun staring at Ben with an intensity that Rey likened to hot magma. "What are they doing?!"

Poe didn't dare take his eyes off him. "Apparently," he huffed in between heavy breaths, "we're surrendering."

"I-" The ref spared a look at Snoke's side, apparently seeking some sort of guidance. He turned back to face Ben. "Are you sure?"

Luke came up behind Ben and tapped him on the shoulder, grabbing his attention. Rey was stuck processing the whole thing in slow motion, because  _what the hell was happening_? Ben nodded, and grabbed the white towel in his uncle's hands. Without time to think or reconsider, Ben practically threw the towel in the ref's face.

"Whoops. Too late now," Ben said, maybe a tad too sardonically for someone who was clearly pissing off about eighty percent of the people there.

A visible ripple in attention seemed to emanate from the other side of the ring, like a guitar string snapping right at the last note of a song. Several people visibly stepped away from Snoke as he stood from his seat.

The ref swallowed, and then seemed to realize he was right in Snoke's line of sight. With a heavy and resigned sigh of man slated for the gallows, he raised his hand and called for the fighters to assume their starting position.

They bowed, first to each other, then the refs, and then crossed sides to shake hands with the opposing team's coaches as was per custom.

"What are you doing?" Rey heard Snoke's man ask Ben as they came in close and shook hands. Something like panic but without any assurance of ending bled into his voice. " _Kylo, what are you doing?!_ "

Ben just shook his head and met the fighter's stare with pity, before it moved to look behind him, where Snoke had just come up, forgoing shaking Poe's hand at all. He had his entourage of toy soldiers around him, each looking discomfited but apparently unable to say why.

"Why don't you kids start packing up?" Rey heard Luke tell the gathered students from his dojang. Despite the tone, it wasn't a request. "Looks like we'll be heading out early."

Snoke's pawn, upon realizing who he was standing between, quickly moved out of the way, at least proving that he still had some modicum of sanity left to him. Rey didn't think she'd ever seen someone move in such a way that could be qualified as  _scamper_  until that moment, nor did she think it would come in such a tense moment.

Slowly, Snoke extended his hand. It looked like an unfamiliar motion to him, and Rey imagined she could see the mental effort that went into executing it. There was still hints of cold in the man's stare, but they were tempered by the off-tempo trill of the world around them. It would seem that the man wasn't used to things not working by the script.

Ben clasped arms with Snoke, and for perhaps the first time ever, smiled a genuine smile at the man. That didn't mean it was kind. Or happy. But it was genuine.

"You bring shame to your teachers with your actions, boy," Snoke uttered, and suddenly damn near everyone there looked away from his face. The end of all things stared back out of those eyes and Rey had to remind herself that they were in public - that he couldn't do anything, that he had no power here and-

"I'm not playing your games, sir." Ben shook his head. "Not anymore."

Snoke let Ben's hand go as if his mere touch burned him. The man had developed a twitch in his jawline. His previously kempt and coiffed hair looked...off.

"Why do seek to spit in the face of everything I ever taught you, child?" he asked softly. It would have sounded like regret if Rey hadn't known for a fact the man's heart wasn't just a desiccated rock from the bottomest crevice of hell.

"Because what I learned wasn't dogma."

"It is history!" Snoke snarled. "It is greatness and legend, honor and reason, faith and victory, boy!  _That_  is what I taught you!" He turned to look at the crowd of onlookers, people he'd strung along like fish in a net, and even those unfortunate enough to be spurred by curiosity to watch. "What a sad state it is, to see his legacy as this."

"Excuse me, Master Snoke?" the referee from earlier came, interrupting what was sure to have been a captivating rant. "We've announced the next match already and..." he let it trail off.

"You'll have to excuse me, Master Snoke," Ben said, understanding completely. "It would seem, through some mysterious circumstances, that all of our students have been eliminated from their various events." A small, little, smile of mischief appeared on his face and it was so very Master Luke that Rey had hold back a disbelieving laugh. "It seems we have no more business here."

Ben bowed. In stark contrast to earlier, it was deep and respectful on first glance. He did so with a flourish, his stance straight and poised, and when he rose it was with a smirk that would have tried the patience of a saint.

And then Ben turned and walked away the victor, having not raised a single fist, nor shed a drop of blood.

Whether that was a scream of rage that followed or just more feedback from the electrical system, they didn't know.

* * *

When Ben got on the bus that they'd rented for the trip, he all but collapsed into his seat.

"Wake me up when the world ends," he declared. Then closed his eyes and rested his head against the headrest. Whatever self-possession he had after leaving Snoke in the barren ashes of his victory was gone. His face had turned pale, and his eyelids twitched erratically. He cracked one eye open and said, "Also, someone please tell me I didn't just do something really stupid."

Rey exchanged looks with Poe and Phasma. The rest of the lower belts had all filed in first and were now living up to the stereotypes of teenagers and being all around nuisances in the back so there wasn't any chance of them being overheard.

It was Poe who broke the silence. "Uh, that depends buddy, do you want me to be honest or do you want me to be a good friend?"

"Same thing," Ben muttered to the group. Luke was already telling the driver they were ready head out. The steady drone of the bus around them filled the cabin of the vehicle and soon the familiar lurching sensation of movement hit them.

"Well in that case...yeah, you just pissed off someone really scary. I'd say that qualifies as stupid. Brave. But stupid." There was a thump as Poe sat down in the seat across the aisle to Ben. "Thanks for stepping in when you did." A silently awkward pause passed and then he added, "You're a good friend, Ben."

"I hate your guts too, Dameron."

Phasma gagged. "God, you guys are such bros. Quick, someone say something insulting before I come over and put you idiots in a headlock."

"Just come try me, Phas," Ben warned.

The next thing Rey knew she was wriggling out of the seating section because holy hell, Phasma actually  _was_  attacking Ben with the proposed headlock. Ben's previously closed eyes shot wide open and then both of them were laughing, hysteria and relief mixing together in this ever so wonderful aftermath as they wrestled like children on a moving bus. Poe, perhaps predictably, was cheering both sides on. Rose was just recording the whole thing between the three of them, presumably for posterity, but most likely for blackmail.

With a squeak and a stutter, Rey escaped from the deathtrap that Phasma and Ben had turned their seats into and she grumbled audibly but without heat as she found a spot a few seats closer to the front, away from the almost-thirty-year-olds who were acting like children.

"How am I the responsible one here?" Rey bemoaned without feeling. There was something freeing and reviving in acting as they did and she couldn't blame them for that.

A few minutes passed, and the commotion died down. She chanced a look back at them to make sure it was safe to head back. Poe held the camera and he was sitting up in his chair, zooming in on the various faces of the lower belts. Even over the not-so low hum of the bus she could hear him rapidly and enthusiastically saying something into the camera.

At some point, Phasma had practically grabbed Rose and dragged her to their seat again. Rose looked exhausted, a feeling that Rey could wholeheartedly understand. Tournament was a tiring affair for anyone used to it, let alone someone who didn't really know what to expect. Rose's head had lolled into the crook of Phasma's arm, which was around her shoulder, and the taller blonde was playing with her hair, drawing it back and framing Rose's soft face with a care that would have astounded Rey once upon a time.

Ben was asleep or nearing sleep, a soft smile of undetermined origin on his lips. A crown of messy hair was his trophy from surviving Phasma's headlock. There were no troubles in his visage, and the shot of pride she felt during the confrontation with Snoke magnified.

"He's grown up quite a bit from the angry boy I took in."

Rey turned around to see Luke, sitting in the seat right in front of hers. He stared beyond her at the same group of people, at the students sitting in the back, and she wondered what else he saw then.  _Who_  else he saw. How many students had he seen in his years? How many scenes like this had he had pass him by without so much as a how do you do?

Suddenly, she understood his insistence on bringing a camera. Luke didn't speak of his training under her grandfather much, but she had the impression it had been terribly lonely. How much were those tournaments indulgences for his students, and how much were they for him?

Luke Skywalker met her stare and mirth filled his expression. "Hey, you didn't spook when I snuck up on you! Good job kid!"

Rey's mouth immediately jumped to snark something back at him before she stopped.

Hadn't she?

Rey searched her memory.

"I guess," she said, eventually finding her voice, "you just can't surprise me anymore, sir."

Ah crap. She didn't mean to sound so disappointed when she said that.

"Oh I don't know," Luke said, eyes practically twinkling like Albus Dumbledore himself. "I'd say this old man's still got some tricks up his sleeve."

" _Old_  is right," she teased. And yet, something in her broke a little at the title he bestowed himself. What was wrong with her? She shook her head, "Don't worry, I'm sure you still have plenty of stuff to teach us."

When he smiled, Rey's heart took a skip and a beat and then a leap right off the Empire State Building. She'd never seen Master Luke look so...free.

"We'll see."

"How'd the plan work out?" she asked, for lack of better options to talk about. She didn't want to linger on this subject matter any longer than necessary.

"Hmm? The plan?"

"You know? The one involving Snoke? The whole reason we went to tournament?"

"Oh that plan. It went well." Luke shrugged, and smiled. Rey stared, waiting for him to continue. He was enjoying playing the enigmatic card way too much.

The bus hit a speedbump, and Rey's was proud of herself for not letting out a squeak of surprise. She kept her stare on Luke, silently willing him to keep talking.

"You did a good job today," he said instead, changing the subject with all the subtlety of someone who didn't care how ticked they made someone. "I heard what you did with the lower belts. Tallie in particular." Another amused grin, as if he were privy to some secret joke. "You did good, kid."

Rey shrugged, suddenly unwilling to meet his eyes. "I had a good teacher."

A loud boom of laughter was Luke's response before he quickly muffled it. "I don't think I can really take credit for it all. A teacher's job isn't to make his student just like them. I'm just here to make sure you get your feet under you so you can leave me in the dust." He leaned forward in his seat. For a moment the entire bus was enveloped in shadow as they passed under a bridge, and Rey shivered as something else hung in the space between them, some, as yet-to-be revealed piece of information.

The feeling passed as soon as they entered the sunlight once more. Rey breathed a sigh of relief and wondered what the the hell was up with Master Luke.

"Sir?" she probed. "Is everything okay?"

Luke scratched his beard once more, and his stare drifted back to the collective of worn out students, tired martial artists, and one very brave nephew. "Truly Rey? No, not yet. But they will be. Which reminds me, you'll be testing second dan next promotion."

Rey choked. Then she did the math in her head and shit, shit, shit she was wasn't she?

"Oh," was all she said, because that was all she found herself with the breath for. With everything going on with Snoke, she'd almost completely forgotten about that part.

"I'm not going to tell you if you're ready or not," Luke commented, clearly noting her reaction but thankfully making no mention of it. She didn't need another person acknowledging just how impending it all was. How her purgatory was finally coming to an end. "I will say, though, that after everything I saw and heard about today, I would happily hand you the belt right now."

She scoured her memory for any indication of Master Luke's presence, but came up with nil. What was he talking about?

"When is it happening?" she decided on at last. She was thankful her vocabulary hadn't actually vanished on her.

"A couple months time. The usual december promotion"

"...I'll make you proud, sir."

"Oh, Rey," Luke sighed. "You already do."

* * *

Testing for second dan was...different.

Rey wasn't entirely sure exactly what she was being tested on. She'd already proven herself as a senior in the Dojang - she already wore her Black Belt proudly. She'd taken the lead with lower belts when needed and didn't think it was bragging to say she was  _good_  at teaching and guiding others. It wasn't bragging or being egotistical - she'd simply figured out what she was good at.

She stood in the now-quiet dojang contemplating exactly  _what_  the goal of her current testing was when Master Luke cleared his throat.

"Mister Dameron, Miss Kenobi, to the front, please."

They responded with  _yes, sir_ 's and left formation to stand in attention directly in front of the table Master Luke sat behind, joined on either side by Ben and Phasma, both of whom gave them small, reassuring smiles.

Ben spoke up first. "At this point, one of the things we'd like to see is how effectively you two can teach. At second dan," he gestured to Rey, "you'll continue helping, and we'd like to rely on you to take lower belts in groups and teach them new techniques. And at third dan," he gestured to Poe, who'd had two promotions since his successful third degree testing, "Obviously teaching is getting more and more important, especially since you might be eligible to test for fourth dan in a few years."

"That's why we'd like to add something a little different to this promotion," Phasma explained. "We'd like to see you work together, and each teach the white belts a new self-defense technique. Please each pick a technique that is level-appropriate, and demonstrate with each other, then lead them through the move and give them feedback."

It made perfect sense, and she and Poe both nodded.

He turned to her and said quietly, "I'm not sure what you're planning, but I can teach them a choke defense." Glancing back to Ben and Phasma, he clarified, "So, if I'm teaching that, Rey would choke me and I'd defend, right?"

"Correct," Luke grinned. The old, familiar twinkle in his eyes was back, and Rey couldn't help but snort.

Poe rolled his eyes and asked her cheekily, "So, how long have you been wanting to do this? Choke me, I mean."

"Since I saw you flirting with my boyfriend," she replied sweetly.

"He wasn't even your boyfriend then!"

She kept her voice quiet and winked, "Don't care. Now let me choke you."

Poe huffed, then smirked. "Kinky."

"You have no idea, Dameron."

He seemed about to tease her further when Ben coughed, and they both turned quickly back to the table, having completely forgotten that while the students couldn't hear them, the three Masters judging them absolutely could. Phasma seemed thoroughly amused. Luke just looked like he was about to call them idiots, but Ben... _Ben_  had crossed his arms over his chest and was quirking an eyebrow at them.

His expression was a cross between trying not to blush and wanting to scold them, but finally he just sighed. "Just- just go teach the lower belts. And  _please_  watch what you say around them."

They both took the hint, each quietly muttering, "Sorry, sir."

Phasma stood and dismissed all students but the white belts from the middle of the floor, and Rey played the role of attacker, choking Poe (carefully) from the front while he led them through a proper defense. They demonstrated a few times, and then paired the white belts up while they walked around and readjusted their stances and moves as needed.

Overall, it went very well, and Poe was calm, confident, and explained everything clearly. It was a tough act to follow, especially when Rey didn't know what to show them.

There were a dozen (or two) different techniques she could teach, but she didn't know which to pick. Did she go for one that was harder and more impressive, though possibly not appropriate for their belt level? Did she go for one that wouldn't be as difficult for her, and them? What had she even learned at their level?

Her mind buzzed with questions as she watched the white belts practice the choke defense, knowing she'd have to teach something in mere minutes.

The biggest question that buzzed in her mind was along the lines of... _What was the goal of this promotion?_

There'd always been a goal.

Break her first board. Perform a poomse alone without freezing. Spar successfully without hurting anyone, or getting hurt. Break concrete. Perform a creative poomse. Spar two-on-one. Survive Luke's insane senior testing. There was always a  _goal_.

This one was different, though. She wasn't really testing on anything new this time. Sure, there was a new poomse, but she'd known it for a solid year and she'd performed it at promotions so it wasn't really  _new_. She'd broken concrete before. She'd performed a creative poomse before and sparred before and-

There was nothing new, so what did they really want to see from her?

That's when it came to her.

This promotion was for  _her benefit_.

It wasn't for a new belt, a new stripe, or a new title. It wasn't for the purpose of showing her poomse, or breaking, or sparring, or  _any_ of it.

It was for  _her_. It was a chance to prove things to herself - it was a chance to leave behind so many things she'd been carrying around. Ghosts, demons, and ghouls that haunted her and filled her dreams, twisting them into nightmares.

Ghosts of drumbeats and parents and the questions that never quite left the back of her mind. Demons that tracked her down and bared their teeth, telling her she had no place in the story with people she loved. Ghouls that still grabbed her arms and threw bottles at her when she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

She'd been training in Taekwondo for over six years, and she'd been training and testing while carrying a dead weight around.

Just how much better would she be if she finally put it down?

And suddenly, she was thankful she'd struggled with a poomse song, because less than an hour before performing her creative poomse, the right one came to mind and she decided to ditch the one she hadn't felt particularly attached to.

"Miss Kenobi, I believe it's your turn," Phasma spoke up, gesturing to the front.

The moves came to mind, and for the first time in a long time, the set of blows didn't spike fear in her. For the first time in literal years, she wasn't filled with the terror of a young girl who used a defense technique she never should have had to.

_She continued to try to pull away from him, and even tried a wrist grab release, but Unkar just laughed._

She stepped slowly to the front of the room, standing tall in front of the students with her back to the Masters behind her. All of the sudden, the scores and notes they wrote down on the sheets in front of them mattered little to her.

_His hand slid down her arm, clenching at her wrist, and when she tried to wrench it away she felt a sharp pain that took her breath away._

Addressing the students, she cleared her throat and said, "What I'm going to teach you can be used in many situations. It isn't necessarily a response for any one attack. More specifically, it hits three easy targets that are a weakness for anyone, which is what makes it so useful. With these three moves, the size of your attacker doesn't have to work against you."

_It was a quick, painful, and harsh way to learn the sometimes, a difference in body size mattered more than martial arts knowledge._

Rey took in a deep breath, trying to gain control over the memories that were rushing back to her, and her voice became a bit more quiet as she added, "With these three moves, you could defend yourself from someone much larger and stronger than you."

Turning her side to the students, she waved Poe over to stand in front of her, and spoke clearly, "There are three easy targets on any attacker. The throat-"

_Rey's free hand stiffened into a half-closed grip - tiger claw, her mind helpfully supplied - and before Unkar or even she knew what she was doing, she jabbed him in the throat with it, striking him in his Adam's apple with about as much force as she could manage. He choked, reeling back from the blow._

She jabbed a tiger-claw strike toward Poe's throat, stopping just before the strike landed.

"-the ears-"

_Rey's hands, this time, both cupped, came in and boxed Unkar's ears like she'd seen Master Luke demonstrate countless times to the dummy they had. It felt as natural as it did good, and part of Rey long buried beneath the dark and the loneliness howled with delight at Unkar's cry of pain._

She carefully cupped her hands and made the motion of boxing Poe's ears.

"-and the nose."

_Her palm strike came in at an upwards angle, but that only helped. She felt the cartilage give and something slick and hot spread beneath her fingers as she retracted her hand._

She thrust her hand up in a palm strike to Poe's nose, stopping before she did any damage.

Rey sucked in a breath, holding on just for a moment to that breath and the memory of the terror that had flooded her. No sixteen year old should have ever had do what she'd done. No sixteen year old should have had to wipe blood off them and spend hours convinced that the police would show up to her school looking for her.

And then she let out the breath.

"If you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to defend yourself," she told the class, "try to stay calm and focus on these three locations."

She let go of the fear. She let go of the memory.

"Every human is vulnerable somehow. Just remember: the throat, the ears, and the nose."

She let go of the terror, and the worry, and the shame she'd felt that day.

"It's a quick and easy way to disable your attacker, giving you enough time to escape."

She smiled at the students, and she breathed in new air.

* * *

Truth be told, Luke had been a little concerned about Rey's creative poomse. She'd asked to stay after in the dojang during the off-hours when she could and work on the moves in privacy. That still hadn't stopped Luke from occasionally catching bits and pieces of her work from his own apartment. Sound traveled unfortunately well up through the floor of the building, but he didn't dare tell her he knew she'd been struggling.

She could have easily repeated her first poomse, just expanded and polished on it to demonstrate her progress from when she'd attained her first dan. No one would have judged her for it. Hell, with the stresses of her classes, worrying about Snoke, and taking a more active role in the teaching of the dojang, Luke practically expected it.

He should have known better. That girl was every bit as proud and stubborn as Luke had been at her age.

For once, Luke didn't mind the pang of selfishness in his own heart. His master had warned against getting too attached to certain students, both for his own sake and theirs, but despite how he usually comported himself, Luke had sometimes been terrible about listening to directions.

Not to mention Old Ben hadn't really taken up his own advice in the end either.

Clearing his throat, he called for Rey. He let Ben and Phasma do the talking, and wondered at what point he'd become such a sentimental softie that just hearing these kids act like adults had him smiling wistfully.

Rey nodded at their words, a young, bright, and scarred light. She headed off to grab her phone when Luke spoke up. "Miss Kenobi?"

She stopped to peer back at him curiously. "Yes, Master Skywalker?"

Words he ached to tell her and Ben threatened to spill forth from him then, but no, it wasn't time yet. It hurt to hide the truth from them, but Luke didn't want to sour this undertaking. The kids were going to have enough on their plates soon enough.

"...good luck, kid."

She smiled, and Luke compared the sight to the little girl who'd come up to him one day after a demo, scared and in wonder with the mystery of his work. The change was subtler than one might think but then, the most important ones always were.

Practically skipping, Rey kneeled before Poe, firing an explanation that would have left Luke dizzy with its speed and intensity. It was funny, he thought, just how they thought he could keep up with them. He could barely make heads or tails of the wild gesticulations that Rey was making with her hands and he allowed himself a chuckle.

Yeah, Han had been right. She  _was_  a firecracker.

Luke's eyes drifted over the audience, taking in the sight. From here, at the head of the room, he could see the changes the building had endured over the years. Some were good, some were bad, and others just were. What a strange journey he'd taken, all within the same building. The same building that had somehow hypnotized his own father.

He saw Leia in the audience. She caught his eye, and he felt the understanding pass between them without even comprehending how. Luke had long stopped questioning how. Twin magic, Han had called it. Family, Luke had corrected.

Ah right, he had to do an introduction didn't he? With a sigh, Luke stood from his seat. His back grumbled accordingly and his legs reminded him of the catalog of small aches and pains that had become close acquaintances for the past ten years. No amount of exercise or material possession would fight off the eventual encounter they'd all make. No legacy could tether him to his Earth, unlike what Snoke seemed to think.

He looked out at the crowd, at Rey, and decided to say  _screw it_. Something like this shouldn't need an introduction.

Huh. Maz was here. All of Rey's friends too. Even Chewie and Lando had come this time. Leia's doing no doubt. They were friendly with Rey but they'd never shown up before…

Clearing his throat, Luke looked at the girl who'd grown to be more than a student to him. The girl who, possibly, had helped Luke more than he'd helped her.

"Begin."

Rey nodded, and looked to Poe. The song that came on...was not what Luke knew for a fact that she'd selected.

 _Show them, Rey,_ Luke thought.  _Show them all._

She bowed her head when the voice came on.

> " _Regrets collect like old friends,_
> 
> _Here to relive your darkest moments-"_

Then, slowly, she began. It started a little like Taeguk Il-Jang, the first she'd ever learned. Her stance eventually stilled, enough to seem offbeat to Luke, and then she  _leapt_.

> " _I can see no way, I can see no way,_
> 
> _And all of the ghouls come out to play."_

Luke watched her fly. She came down lightly, and didn't even bother to stop or breathe. Arms came up in a rapid one-two combination sequence, shadowboxing the devil itself as if it were standing before her, stopping her from moving forward.

> " _And every demon wants his pound of flesh,_
> 
> _But I like to keep some things to myself-"_

She swayed in place, tempting the invisible creature with another pound of flesh, before she spun and hooked a tiger claw down at the throat of the thing coming up behind her.

> " _I like to keep my issues strong,_
> 
> _It's always darkest before the dawn."_

Luke remembered a girl who once looked so uncertain of the hurt she could inflict, of a girl who looked so satisfied with the hurt she had inflicted on an unsuspecting fellow student.

> " _And I've been a fool and I've been blind,_
> 
> _I can never leave the past behind-"_

He remembered fearing for Rey, terrified he wouldn't reach her.

He didn't fear for her anymore.

> " _I can see no way, I can see no way,_
> 
> _I'm always dragging that horse around;_
> 
> _Our love is pastured such a mournful sound,_
> 
> _Tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground."_

A drop and sweeping hook was her next move, followed by a sudden, spearing motion as she flew backward, landing in a tumble, thrown back by some invisible blow. She landed on her back, on purpose, and then flipped up back into her feet.

> " _So I like to keep my issues strong._
> 
> _But it's always darkest before the dawn."_

Luke almost laughed. He remembered the day she'd finally managed such a relatively minor thing, and the self-satisfied beaming smile she had the rest of the day. Such an odd thing to be proud about.

> " _Shake it out, shake it out,_
> 
> _Shake it out, shake it out."_

She kihaped and then started moving into her kicks. High, middle, low, jump, spin, hook, axe. A relentless assault on fears and beasts that once held power over her.

> " _And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back,_
> 
> _So shake him off-_
> 
> _'Cause I am done with my graceless heart,_
> 
> _So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart."_

Luke wasn't so arrogant as to admit he was responsible for her progress. He'd always strived to hold himself apart from his students, wishing their successes to be their own with minimal help from him, but as with Ben, he acceded to the instinct. Maybe it was arrogant of him, but he liked the idea of being partly responsible for Rey's person today.

> " _'Cause I like to keep my issues strong-"_

Selfish of him, even.

> " _It's always darkest before the dawn."_

That was fine. His greatest selfish act was yet to come, after all.

> " _Shake it out, shake it out,_
> 
> _Shake it out, shake it out-"_

As Luke watched the young woman drag her darkness before the light, embrace it, and toss the dregs and parasites aside, he thanked Rey.

> " _And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back,_
> 
> _So shake him off."_

Thanked her for the opportunity to witness this, thanked her for the wonderful, beautiful insight into the upstanding,  _good_  person she'd become, and thanked her for making his last promotion such a memorable occasion.

> " _I tried to dance with the devil on your back,_
> 
> _And given half the chance would I take any of it back?"_

When she kihaped he wanted to join her. When she jumped and leapt, he could see her fly. His name may have been Skywalker, but he was in awe of these kids who seemed to surpass their teachers without even knowing it.

> " _It's a final mess but it's left me so empty-"_

He wanted to shake her hand, hug her, and grab that too-tall boy Ben and do the same.

> " _It's always darkest before the dawn."_

He looked around the dojang, and if his vision watered, no one called him out on it.

He was  _still_  Grandmaster after all.

It was time.

* * *

Master Luke paced back and forth between her and the judging table. She stood at attention with all the other belts behind her, awaiting his words.

Her fist throbbed, but in her experience that was pretty normal after slamming through inches of concrete. Behind her back she gently flexed her hand, wincing subtly as she waited for him to break the silence that had settled over the Dojang.

Ben and Phasma were both smiling at her proudly and warmly, and Rey knew full well they never would have tested her if they didn't believe she'd pass. She knew she'd be leaving with a second dan belt and certificate, but for some reason, Luke's not-yet-spoke words mattered to her more.

"You know, Miss Kenobi," he started quietly, voice thick, "a long time ago I asked you a question. I asked it of your yellow belt class, actually.  _Can anyone tell me what Taekwondo is?_ " He stopped in front of her and glanced up from the floor, meeting her eyes with a slight grin, and suddenly it was just them. Just her and Master Luke, training together like they had so many times. "Do you remember how you answered?"

She hesitated, and answered honestly, "I'm sorry, sir. I don't. I'm pretty sure I answered incorrectly, though."

"Oh, you absolutely did," he laughed, nodding. "You told me it was about kicking and punching and being able to protect yourself. And if I remember correctly, you also said it was about breaking  _things_ , but not  _people_."

The silence in the room was broken by soft laughter from both the audience and lower belts, prompting her to blush slightly at her previous clear misunderstanding of the martial art. Luke seemed amused despite his misty eyes, and he waited for the laughter to die down before asking quietly, "Has your answer changed?"

"Of course it has, sir," she breathed.

He nodded knowingly, and if she wasn't mistaken, sniffled lightly before clearing his throat to ask, "Would you like to share your new answer with us, Miss Kenobi? What is Taekwondo? What is this Dojang? What is it to  _you?_ "

She answered plainly, and truthfully.

"It's family, sir."

The sniffling hadn't been part of her imagination, and she realized it when he looked up at her with watery eyes and a grateful smile. It seemed like he was struggling not to hug her.

"I'm glad to hear you say that," Luke admitted, wiping at his eye, "because, kid, for years now, you've been a daughter to me." He stopped, and laughed, "And I'm not going to lie to you...you haven't always made this easy."

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.

 _Daughter_.

"I don't think I have to tell you that it doesn't  _usually_  take two years between first dan and second."

Rey bit her lip, nodding bashfully.

"But if your answer has gone from  _it's about kicking and punching_  to  _it's family_ -" he paused, taking in a breath while he shook his head slightly, and sighed, "Then kid, I think I've taught you everything I have to teach."

Luke studied her carefully for a moment, and spoke directly to her as he said, "It's been a pleasure, teaching you for the last six years. More than that - it's been an honor." He turned, and took her fresh new belt with her name and two gold stripes from Ben, and unwrapped the elastics that kept it folded. Moving back to stand in front of her, he tucked the new belt under his arm, and grasped her first dan belt, untying from her waist carefully.

He unwrapped the belt from her waist slowly and methodically, as if it was a memory he was trying to burn into his brain, and he stared down at it for a moment once it was in his hands, folding it back up. The elastics that had held her new belt together now wrapped around the one that was worn, faded, and cherished as he set it on the desk behind him.

"Arms up," he said quietly, taking her new belt out from under his arm.

Rey hadn't touched it yet, but it was jet-black, unfaded, and stiff, just like a new belt usually was. He wrapped it around her just where her old one had been, and was very deliberate in tying it, readjusting it and tugging at one end or the other to make sure the ends hung symmetrically. She stared down, almost in disbelief at the two gold stripes sewn into the belt.

"It's been an honor," he repeated, softly enough for only her to hear. "I hope, someday, no matter what happens, you'll realize how thankful I am that I've had the chance to be your teacher."

Before she had a chance to consider his words and what they might mean, he took a step back and smiled up at her fondly.

"Turn around," he commanded, suddenly once again Grand Master Luke Skywalker.

She grinned at him, and took in a deep breath as she turned her back to him, facing the rest of the Dojang, all students still at attention.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Luke said, quietly, his tone one of a man overwhelmed with love, hope, and happiness. "Please join me in congratulating Miss Rey Kenobi, 2nd Dan."

* * *

The belt around her waist didn't feel real. Oh, it weighed something and the fabric was nice and crisp and unmistakably black. It was  _her_  name sewn into the side, and those were  _her_  dan markings that she'd earned, but it didn't feel real to Rey, who was swallowed by a veritable hurricane of people as soon as Master Luke dismissed the promotion.

He'd been oddly subdued, but Rey couldn't exactly ask him about that during the promotion, not when he'd looked at her like family and she could scarcely think the word and feel the same.

Later. She'd tell him later, in private. Maybe Ben could be there, so he could join in what would undoubtedly be a mildly awkward, very emotional few minutes that maybe Rey could leverage into being a hug with the Skywalker men. Despite everything, Luke still seemed like he needed one.

Laughing, giggling, chuckling her way through pictures and selfies with the lower belts (all of them had passed their breaks on the first try, thank you very much), Rey then quickly changed her clothing and started helping clean up. Her triple buns were tied a little awkwardly but she'd rushed through the changing so she could actually be of use and not just take pictures with everyone there.

She was stopped, perhaps ironically, by the very man who'd bestowed the belt upon her.

"Let me take care of this," Luke said, grabbing the leftover boards out of her hands. He looked lighter and happier than he had ten minutes earlier. Like some great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

"Sir?"

"Go on, Rey," he said, inclining his head to her group of friends who were already waiting at the exit. "You've got your whole life ahead of you. Let me take care of things here for once. It's not good for a master to always rely on his students for the hard stuff."

Rey snorted "What happened to building character, sir?"

"Kid, you've got enough character."

Luke put the boards on the examiners table and crossed his arms. He looked strangely out of place in his dobok for some reason. Like a monochromatic movie character shifted decades forward into reality. "Remember what I said about a teacher's responsibility?"

"To make sure I'm not just like you?" There were warning bells going off in her head, but she paid them no heed. "You know, there are worse things to be."

Luke's laughter was like a thunderclap in the bubble of quiet that seemed to have befallen them. "There are a lot better things to be as well," he said, eventually. "Master Kyung sends his regards by the way."

"What?" Rey had almost forgotten about the man. Actually it'd been weeks since she'd last seen the man. "Wait, does that mean he's gone?" she asked excitedly.

Luke's expression turned mischievous, but he didn't say anything.

"Does this mean the investigation is off?" she asked then instead.

More silence.

"...sir?"

"Remember the lessons I taught you, kid," Luke said at last. That same lightness was there but it was also tempered with something else. "Now go to your friends, Rey. Live your life."

Her previous elation all but gone, Rey nodded uncertainly and left. She saw Ben exit the men's changing room, wearing a nicely fitted black sweater, and he started to exchange words with Luke when all of a sudden Luke waved impatiently for Ben to go join her. She hid her smile and decided to be the bigger person and not point out that Ben looked to be pouting about Luke taking over cleanup.

They joined the main group, a motley crew of young and old, small and comparatively huge (seriously, Chewbacca made her feel twelve all over again). Rey caught Leia, Chewbacca and Lando break off, probably to go speak with Luke, but she thought nothing of it because it seemed normal.

By some unanimous decision they all agreed to head to Maz's after some good-natured griping from the old crone about  _always having to feed these people_  and yada yada yada. Rey ended up tuning her out but didn't dare meet the woman's eyes for fear that she would somehow know.

Instead her thoughts turned to Kyung.

Master Luke had been strangely evasive regarding the matter, but she pieced together what she could. Kyung knew about Plutt, and likely the incident surrounding Luke threatening to kill the man. That...almost certainly meant that something was going to happen to Luke, at the very least.

Which wasn't good.

And yet Luke looked so happy…

But she hadn't seen Kyung in weeks. Shouldn't that have been a good thing? The way Master Luke had spoken of the man, and judging by her own impressions, Kyung wouldn't wait to pounce on a loose thread like a confirmed death threat from Luke.

All thoughts of Kyung, Luke, and Snoke, turned to ash when they opened the door to the diner, and found the demon of the hour himself sitting at the bar.

"Ah, Miss Kenobi," Snoke welcomed them, "Congratulations on your promotion." The man crossed his legs and an ill wind seemed to blow the door closed behind them. "It is a pity it won't last."

He grabbed a small manila folder from the counter and didn't even bother with proper form. He tossed it to them with barely a care. The contents of the folder were strewn about on the black and white checkered floor in various directions.

There were three other men in the diner. All three wore deep, dark red jackets reminiscent of dried blood. No waitresses, cooks, or other clientele in sight. They sat in different corners, hunched over cold coffee mugs that looked full. They watched the group that entered patiently, like trained dogs awaiting some unspoken signal.

Beside her, Rey saw Ben stoop down to grab one of the papers that had escaped the folder. Whether through courage, or just being done with Snoke's shit, Ben didn't seem to care about the other men in the room. Emboldened, Rey did the same, grabbed the folder itself.

She opened the folder and stopped. She heard someone, probably Finn or Hux, curse loudly.

"It is simply amazing, the power of technology these days," Snoke mused, holding his empty glass up to his face. "I was hoping to preserve these for safekeeping, a reminder to never let myself be caught off guard again, but as a teacher I realize it's my duty to educate those who should learn from their mistakes."

Pictures. Some grainy, some not. But enough to get an idea.

Finn, arm extended, a long black taser in his hands as he delivered thousands of volts into someone's body.

Hux, caught mid-throw with one of his Molotov cocktails.

Poe and Phasma, each caught beating the absolute crap out of a downed opponent because  _of course_ they would they weren't stupid enough to assume he was down for the count.

Rey, wild and wielding a spear as long as she was tall, drawing blood and looking like she was having the time of her life.

And many pictures of Ben, standing tall over opponents turned so red it was hard to tell where bruises started and the open wounds began.

"I was hoping to make this last longer," Snoke explained slowly. "A good lesson may take months, years of insemination. But it seems that Kylo Ren has truly forgotten his place amongst my own." He licked his lips. "I cannot abide a student who will not listen."

And then the monster turned man looked at Rey directly and said, "So, Kylo Ren, Miss Kenobi, are you finally ready to learn?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A Grand Master's final lesson.
> 
> Onfire: Yeah, pissing off Snoke usually means bad things happen. One thing we've wanted to make clear, is that however else Snoke acts, he thinks himself a teacher. He's created this weird idolatry centered around himself and Anakin Skywalker's teachings and Ben seriously pissed him off by flat out rejecting the lessons as he intended. Not even just that, what's worse is that Ben just...stopped. Before, Snoke might have been happy just slowly ruining their lives, to eventually claim his "rightful legacy" but to see his prize, his idol's legacy spit in Snoke's face as he did, by refusing to fight...well, there are certain things Snoke won't have.
> 
> Attack: This was the last promotion and poomse of the story. <3
> 
>  
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	54. Grand Master

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is officially the last chapter of the main story. We can't tell you just how much we appreciate all the comments, and we're still working on replying to all of them. Chapters 55-60 will be Epilogues, and we're going to take about a week off so we can get them all written. They'll be shorter (probably 3-5K each), and we want to write them all at once so we can post them daily. Please feel free to check in with on Tumblr or Twitter (we're both on twitter now) for updates.
> 
> The master post with info on the song referenced here, along with all our fanart and moodboards can be found [HERE](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/180785808982/last-main-fic-chapter-chapters-55-60-are)
> 
> Also. The "next" mentioned in the last chapter..."A Grand Master's final lesson"? That wasn't about Snoke.

Rey looked up at the perverse incarnation before her. Hair immaculately combed as usual, a sickly and unhealthy pallor to his skin, a beguiling calm that hid the madness beneath, and, at last, permeating or polluting the air around him, was a sense of calm, assured victory.

This was the kind of man who would stand tall in Rey's nightmares, who'd look right at home amidst a carnival of fiends and monstrosities. Hell, he'd be the ringleader. This was the kind of creature who would have looked at the sad, scared girl from six years ago and spit on her for daring to breathe in his presence.

"Go to hell," Rey said flatly. She was tempted to toss the folder back in his face, but she resisted. He undoubtedly had copies stored elsewhere and she didn't know if holding on to the pictures might prove beneficial somehow.

"You forget your station, Miss Kenobi." A wintry smile graced his face. "I am a grand master, after all."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, glaring. "Go to hell,  _sir_."

The men stationed around the diner stood immediately at that, in unison. It would have been impressive if it wasn't so unnerving. In response, she felt more than saw her friends fan out behind her, forming a defensive semi-circle in front of the entrance. The jingle of the door opening and closing told Rey someone had left, probably Maz, thus leaving Rey and her friends alone with the most dangerous man she'd ever had the misfortune of meeting.

Snoke raised his hands, forestalling any action from his men. "Becalm yourself, my students," he crooned. "This, after all, is why we are here. She has yet to learn." He turned a malevolent stare upon her. "But she will. Both she and Kylo Ren will learn. After all, Master Kenobi should shoulder as much of the blame as Master Skywalker. Since he is not here to do so," his eyes narrowed as he glared down at her, "His granddaughter can learn the lesson in his place."

Tension and something else showed on the face of one of the men before he nodded and assumed an at-ease stance. She couldn't really call them fighters or martial artists. Not anymore.  _Thugs_ was as close as she could get before she another thought crossed her mind.

Ben stepped forward, arms down by his sides. She could practically feel the rolling tension in his shoulders as he held himself deliberately loose, hanging in such a way as to respond most efficaciously.

"What do you want?" he said.

In the periphery of her eyes Rey saw Poe quickly snag a napkin-rolled pair of fork and knife and hand it to Finn. The cheap, but still deceptively sharp, metal gleamed in the light of the diner. There was no one around, no sign of the cooks or the waitresses who Rey knew for a fact should have been there this time of day. They were, for all intents and purposes, alone.

"I want for nothing more than the success of my students," Snoke returned. A slither of something cold and ancient made its way through and Rey resisted the urge to flinch. "I wish for the teachings of my master to succeed beyond me."

Phasma snorted even as she moved to cover both Hux and Rose from the man's line of sight. "And blackmail is how you plan on doing that, yeah?"

"Ah, Master Phasma," Snoke said instead, as if this were some pleasant unexpected surprise instead of something he'd rigged ahead of time. "Do you recall what I told you when you tested for fourth dan under me?"

Phasma shrugged, but still kept her eyes forward on the closest of the slaves. "Not really," she lied. Rey wondered if anyone else could tell distinguish the terrible fear within those words. "I kinda' take sociopaths words with a grain of salt nowadays."

"I had thought you'd see the sense of my offer, but, it seems, I gave you too much credit." Snoke shook his head. "A Master must always remain objective and seek to tame their heart. A heart is a weakness."

Closing her eyes briefly, Phasma looked back to her friends, specifically Rose and Hux. "There's a difference between taming and chaining it up, Snoke. My heart has only made me stronger."

"It's Master Snoke to you," Snoke corrected all too gently. "Need I remind you, you would not be where you are now were it not for me?"

Her next few words came out flat. "I'm  _happy_. You had no part in that."

"Happiness," he repeated, his tone scornful. "I suppose it was too much to expect otherwise. I suspected you wouldn't have the stomach for the truth of the world, and I can see I was right."

"I dunno', man, seems like she's doing pretty well from where I'm standing," Finn muttered from behind Rey. It was enough gall and mouth that would have shocked her had she not seen him inject thousands of volts just to protect Poe the last time they'd been in a situation just like this.

"You are backed into a corner, boy," Snoke replied dryly, "what makes you think where you're standing is in anyway a smart idea?"

Finn and Poe shared a look. Then, Finn took out his appropriated knife and brought it to bear like a warrior with a sword, and he said, "Because I'm right where I'm supposed to be." Finn inclined his head to them. "By their side. With my friends."

Snoke looked askew at Finn for a moment before he let out a high, cold, laugh that could have salted the earth. "Sentiment! Of course!" He fixed Finn with a professional-class sneer. "I suppose you, too. believe in the greater good of the human soul? In the redemption and freedom from choices taken?"

Finn looked nonplussed. "Uh, what?"

"You're involving yourself in something that doesn't concern you, boy," Snoke dismissed. "Leave. Your betters are talking and my time is precious."

" _Excuse_ me!" Poe shouted, scandalized, "What the fuck did you just-"

"You too. I have little patience for self-sacrificing fools." Snoke pinned Poe with a glare that would have worked on someone with more sense than heart, but that description didn't fit Poe. He did however, choke back the encyclopedia of swears and insults that Rey could see he was just begging to let loose on the man before them. "I am here on business with Miss Kenobi, and Kylo Ren. The rest of you are unimportant." His next word came with a sneer and a hiss, "Leave."

That was the wrong thing to say. Rey loved her friends, but she could see the bristling restlessness spread through, whether at the curt dismissal or at the insulting notion that they would even consider leaving Ben and Rey with the man responsible for so much of the utter fuckery in their lives. It struck Rey as hugely flawed of Snoke, an oversight she wouldn't have thought he'd miss however much she personally despised the man.

It was Rose who broke the piling tension. Her voice was kept as demure as Rey knew for a fact she absolutely wasn't, but she kept her face low and unsuspecting, avoiding eye-contact with Snoke. "What do you want with them?"

"For them to  _learn,_  you foolish child," Snoke whispered. Rey had to fight to control the chilling tone from flaying her skin where she stood. There were blades out there with less cut to their edge. "And if that means I must return to the roots of their training, so be it." A pause. "A martial artist is only worth their own prowess and talent, and I plan on nurturing those."

The bell behind them rung, the joyful jingle a completely discordant sound for the mood of the diner. Rey didn't spare a glance to see who it was. She had a good idea already.

"Ah, Alistair," Luke said from behind Rey. He sounded unnecessarily cheerful.

"I thought my day was going too well. Here to stomp and pout and be a nuisance again? Any chance we can reschedule? I've got an early meeting with a building inspector again tomorrow." And then his voice turned decisively annoyed. "Some petty malcontent  _asshole_  seems to have reported me for improper building code violations. Again."

Rey blinked and looked back at Luke.

He'd swapped out of his dobok. Once again, he wore a god-awful, ugly hawaiian-themed shirt. Somehow it was also Christmas themed, with little reindeers bouncing with pineapples between them on a beach.

She felt some of her grasp of the situation slip.

What the  _fuck?_

"My name is  _Master Snoke_ ," their mutual enemy repeated, and frustration finally started bleeding through. "I don't care how your students address you, Master Skywalker, but I at least  _earned_ my title. It would do them and you well to remember that."

Luke scowled. "What do you want, Snoke?"

"What is due to me."

"The building's not for sa-"

"Not that," Snoke waved his hand, as if dismissing the notion. "I've made my peace with the fact that I will have to purge your hold from its hallowed halls slowly, and I promise you, I can wait." His next smile showed teeth. "One doesn't consider whether or not they'll have fun when molding the future, but this? This I'll enjoy."

Luke looked almost bored.

"Return Kylo Ren to me," Snoke demanded, "and I won't have to deliver these-" he gestured to the photos in Rey's and her friends' hands, "-to the relevant interested parties."

Hux's laugh came out a little hysterical. "Oh good, so we've moved on from violence, a year of harassment and gratuitous threats  _of_  violence, to full-out extortion." He shook his head in disbelief. "I knew when you moved in next door to me all those years ago something like this might come to bite me in the ass, Ben."

"Eh, I'd say it was hitching back up with me that did you in, babe," Phasma drawled. "This guy is kinda' my ex-boss and all."

"Yeah sure," Hux nodded, conceding, "but you're not the one he's obsessing over. Ben is." He made a face and not-so-subtly muttered. "You know, Ben, at least your other fangirl can actually keep her crazy under control. And she's cute."

It must have taken Snoke a moment to figure out he was being insulted, and had the situation not been somewhat dire, Rey may have been insulted as well. The man hissed angrily at his new title, " _Fangirl?_ "

Rey's attention, which had inconveniently strayed from the predator in front of them, ratcheted back at the sound of death and desolation that escaped from that one word. Snoke didn't so much as look angry or furious as he did...shattered. And not in the broken way. More in the exposed sharp edges and broken glass with every breath kind of way.

Snoke's smile was worthy of a slasher's award.

"Armitage Hux," Snoke sang into the diner, "the drunkard. The tool. The imbecile who thought to set a kingdom on fire, with no thought to the consequences thereof." He began turning the glass in his hands, even while he started addressing someone else. "Gwendoline Phasma, the girl who orchestrated so much of my temple, only to spit in the face of my generosity. And-"

He stopped, staring down at Rose.

"Who are you?" he asked bluntly.

Something about that question was important. Rey's instincts were practically screaming at her to see it, but the knowledge hung just out of reach no matter how she grasped.

" _She_ is under my protection," Luke interjected, perhaps a tad too hastily. What was with the sudden urgency - the sudden change to his dry, bored tone? He stepped out from behind the makeshift barrier they'd formed around the entrance. "Just like all of these young men and women."

Snoke seemed genuinely amused. "Really now, Master Skywalker? And what are you protecting them from? The consequences of their own actions? Of the choices they've made?" A sinister lilt entered his voice. "That is not what a teacher does."

Luke started walking closer until the closest of Snoke's men moved and stepped in front of him. Everyone on Rey's side took in a collective breath.

Snoke's man stood in place, having risen from a solitary chair earlier. His body skulked tensely over Luke, clearing the top of the older man's head by at least half a foot. He was all wiry muscle, patient, awaiting orders to pounce and destroy and-

"Son, you better sit back down unless you  _want_  me to kick your ass up between your ears." Luke huffed. "Not that you're not already doing a good enough job of that already."

The man's facial expression didn't so much as twitch. The most Rey saw was a minor tic in his jaw, a natural biological function ingrained and executed because of the ludicrousness of a much smaller animal disrespecting the larger one. It wouldn't have looked out of place on something with larger teeth and a lot more brain power.

"Let him through," Snoke ordered. "Failure that he is, he is still higher ranking than you. Listen to your teachers."

The man - she recognized him as Peavey, from the same squad that had surrounded them after her and Ben's fight back at the fight club - bowed his head low and stepped aside, surrendering his control and agency with naught a sliver of resistance. Rey had to fight the urge to reach out and grasp Ben's hand, because  _that_  was what he'd nearly become. A broken and beaten shell of a man, lashed into obedience, if not outright mental slavery.

Luke grasped the man's shoulder, startling him. Peavey's expression had gone meek at the command and nothing remained in that face, nothing human or living or possibly worth salvaging. It made her want to vomit.

Luke gestured for him to lean down. Unsure, and perhaps exhibiting the first bit of independence in months, Peavey leant his ear close. Once Luke said his piece, too private for anyone for Rey to hear, Peavey jerked up and moved back, a confused look spearing Luke in place, as if he couldn't comprehend the words he'd just heard.

Snoke observed this all with the same scathing apathy as he'd spoken with.

When Luke broke off and came face to face with Snoke, there was a stutter in the heartbeat of the world. For his part, Snoke simply kept revolving the empty glass in his hands, exuding a strange and concerning fascination for the object.

"I think it's sad," Snoke said at last, "that I had to resort to this. He would have been disappointed in me, for letting it get this far."

"Anakin Skywalker was not someone to care much for methods, only results." Luke nodded, apparently agreeing.

"I will have what is mine by right," Snoke continued, in that same affable tone as before. "I will teach Kylo Ren that which he must embody. Only then, will I rest." A sigh. It was an old man's sigh. "Only then, can I rest. I must not disappoint my teacher."

"He wouldn't have wanted this, Alistair." Luke shook his head.

"I wouldn't know," Snoke rebutted. "He died before he could tell me."

The strange, not-friendly, but not-antagonistic moment crumbled like rusting iron over millennia with that statement, all in within the span of two seconds.

"A student listens to his master," Snoke said, voice quiet and so very human it took Rey a moment to place it as him. "As I did, as these men before us have, and as Kylo Ren shall once more."

"That's not what you want," Luke pointed out. She could only see the back of his form from her vantage point. "You just want to reclaim what little piece of his past that you think you've lost."

Snoke stilled. His hand, still gripping the empty glass, stopped. Rey thought she heard a faint crack of ancient bone as fingers older than her encompassed the base and threatened to clutch it to pieces.

Luke stood tall, and something grand and majestic fell into place in his bearing.

"You know, Snoke, I think I'm ready to sell the dojang," he announced at last.

The glass in Snoke's hand shattered.

* * *

**Ten Months Earlier**

Luke watched as all the kids left, each of them marching out of Leia's dining room into the foyer with despondent mutterings and woebegotten sighs. None of them sported any of the joyous smiles or laughs that he'd seen from them in earlier months.

They'd just finished with their "war meeting," as Phasma had so aptly put it, and Luke had hated to cast a shadow over the corners that each of them had somehow managed carve out in the world. It had been difficult breaking the news to the kids, drawing the connections between each of the various misfortunes that had started affecting their lives.

Outside the snowstorm had stilled, finally giving the kids (he didn't care that three of them were almost thirty, they were still kids to him) the opportunity to escape from the claustrophobic sweltering trap that was currently Leia's house.

Luke waved them goodbye before finally falling into his seat without any of his usual composure. He usually kept it together in front of the younger ones, but Leia's home was one of the few places he could truly relax, even if there was a distinct lack of Han Solo with his loud grumblings and overly loud rock music. He truly missed the man, especially now. Han would have helped him with a hairbrained scheme to solve this mess, and he would have been grinning the whole time.

Chewie came over and put his head in Luke's lap. The dog, not the man. Luke still almost couldn't believe Han had named his dog after his oldest friend. Was that supposed to be a compliment or an insult?

Scratching the dog's ears, Luke mulled over the conversation they'd all had. The entire affair had been somber and maybe it was the weather, or maybe it was his age, but the situation was looking bleak for them, even if Rey and the others didn't grasp it quite yet.

"Something on your mind?" Leia asked, dropping an empty glass in front of him.

Luke looked up at her and shook his head. "Just...thinking."

"Been doing too much of that if you ask me," Maz said from her own high-backed chair. At some point she'd acquired a glass full of amber liquid. "Too much thinking. Not enough doing."

Maz had elected to stay back, not wanting to join the kids on their way out. Apparently they cramped her style. More likely, as much as Maz liked to jest and joke with Rey and Phasma, she was getting older and just couldn't really keep up with them. Not like she used to be able to. Having the diner shut down had been a blow to her spirit in a way that Luke had never seen before, even if the shutdown wasn't permanent.

Old. That was something Luke had never thought about getting before. Old Ben had taken to his nickname outside of formal Taekwondo settings with surprising acquiescence. When asked about it, he'd smiled and said that Luke would understand someday, in that infuriating tone of voice that indicated he knew a secret Luke didn't.

Well, now here he was. Old and still not knowing what the hell his old master was on about. Sometimes Luke wondered if the man had been all there by the end. There was only so much a boy could buy the  _wise old kook_  schtick before they stripped the word "wise" from the designation.

"Is there a way to turn this around on him?" Maz asked, her voice strangely subdued. "Can't you, I dunno' convince the tax fraud people to look over his way instead?"

Leia shook her head and poured herself and Luke a glass from a marvelous looking glass decanter. He imagined he would have appreciated the drink and offer more if it didn't feel like the long reach of their past was rising from abyss to strangle him.

"It's not a matter of whether I can or not," Leia said, at last, taking a long sip from her glass. "I'm sure I could, given time and a few talks with the right people. The problem isn't that. Like we said, Snoke's got connections."

"Send them their way, too."

"That wouldn't solve anything," Luke interrupted. The news that he and the kids were under review by the Taekwondo Federation still sat front and center of his mind, but that didn't mean he couldn't participate. "That's too much work for any group of people to tackle. We're talking hundreds if not thousands of people, each of them affluent and powerful in their own way. It'd take years to make any headway and that's if Snoke doesn't do anything else by then."

"Bah," Maz scoffed. "I think I miss the days when all I had to worry about was if someone was going to get in a fight in the diner. None of this failed health inspection crap."

"The world's changed," Leia said, nodding and raising a glass to that before sipping some more. "There's a lot more light shining on everything now. And that means a lot more monsters crawling out from under their dark corners, dressing like people and talking like men." Leia shook her head. "Back during my political days a good scandal could be leveraged properly, would do someone in...but just tax fraud isn't going to stop Snoke."

Luke didn't bat an eye at the blunt and casual admittance of Leia crushing political opponents under her heel. He already knew his sister was ruthless, and he was fine with it. It was half the reason they hadn't all gotten caught for various illicit activities anyways.

Still...something she said stuck with him.

Luke tested the words he'd spoken earlier on his lips. "It's about shaping a narrative..." he murmured.

A seed. No, not even a seed. The incipient genesis of one, a microcellular entity of a plan - barely more than five words strung together - formed in Luke's mind.

"What if," Luke said, sounding out the thought even as it formed, "what if we use Snoke's connections against him?"

"Hmm? How so?"

"I don't know," he admitted. He ran his hand through his hair, idly noting he'd been cultivating much more of a wild hermit look in recent months than he had been before. "Just...something to make him persona non grata. Maybe not turn them against him, but show him as someone not worth helping?"

"If you could manage that? Cut his connections from the picture? Then yes,  _maybe_  I'd have a chance." Leia sighed, looking more like a tired queen than a woman who'd been fighting for what was right for most of her life.

But, in a way, weren't the two the same?

"But Luke, even with his business connections, and his money out of the way, there's still the problem of Snoke himself." She grimaced, "He's got a reputation. And no amount of scandal is going to get rid of that easily."

"Three pillars of power," Luke mused, frowning. He looked at his glass. Huh. He'd emptied it already. "The man's certainly well-prepared."

But even as he said that, his thoughts turned to the words of one of his students from earlier…

He hummed, giving a slight nod to the glass he stared at.

The seed of an idea started to sprout.

* * *

**Present Day**

Rey paced in the main practice hall of the dojang. She tried to think peaceful thoughts, but found her mind straying to something bloody and ugly.

"This is insane," she muttered.

Ben, Poe, and Phasma watched her from where they leaned against the wall. All of them wore their dobok on Luke's insistence.

The fabric had never felt quite so heavy. Not even on the first day she'd put one on.

"You're going to dig a hole in the floor if you keep pacing like that," Ben noted.

"Good," she snapped, "then maybe they'd call this whole thing off."

It was a week after Rey's second dan promotion. A week since they'd faced Snoke in the diner.

December had sludged its way into existence fully despite November's protests, and the entire week had perfectly mimicked the state of Rey's soul for its duration. Grey mists and clouds, accentuating the grey scenery and lighting that grasped futilely down at them from the cloud cover, all with the perpetual grey aftertaste that had taken root in Rey's mouth since the confrontation at the diner.

" _I'm ready to sell the dojang."_

_The glass in Snoke's hand shattered._

" _...excellent."_

They'd agreed to meet a week from that day - just enough time for Luke to "get his affairs in order" as Snoke had put it, and there was no doubt in Rey's mind that he'd intended to for it to come off like a death knell for the old, wizened Luke who'd somehow become her family.

Her father, really.

The week had been spent with Luke performing a variety of strange tasks, including meeting with an estate lawyer Leia had put him in touch with, along with long hours spent in the privacy of his own office, talking on the phone regarding alternative accommodations.

Ben had told Rey that he'd seen Luke pack several items into a large, beaten down suitcase in the wee hours of the night. It was the kind used for traveling, per him. Or moving out, which she realized they'd need to do. Luckily Ben didn't have many belongings, and she supposed he'd temporarily be moving into Leia's with her while they figured out how to pick up the pieces of everything they'd lost.

Everything they were  _about_  to lose.

Classes had been shut down for the week, and it was only the second time any of them could remember that happening. The first had been in the wake of Han's death, when the grief had been too fresh and the wounds too deep for Luke to simply grit his teeth and deal.

To Rey, this just seemed like preemptive grief. The calm, methodical motions of a man who had nothing left except routine and preparations before he fell into a sleep he'd never wake up from.

She spared a glance to the office.

"Something's wrong," she declared. Then she winced. Either she hadn't slept properly or that raspy undertone was pure desperation speaking. "Something's not adding up here."

Ben pushed off from the wall. She'd been talking with her hands, gesticulating them crazily, pointing to Luke's office door and just being an all-round menace to the invisible people around her. He grabbed her hands gently, and tried to calm her down, cupping her cheek and pulling her in close.

"Hey, it's going to be okay. Everything'll turn out all right," Ben said softly, and she wondered when it was he'd gone and gotten so mature and calm. Why wasn't he freaking out about this more?

"What makes you think that?" Poe asked. He looked about as good as Rey felt, which meant that he looked awful. "What's not adding up?"

"It's just...ugh." Rey shook her head, and wondered what the cure for this malaise that had befallen her and her friends was. Punching Snoke? That would probably make  _her_  feel better. "It's just...before that business at the diner Master Luke told me he had a plan."

"Plan?" Phasma asked sharply. "What kind of plan?"

The woman rose from where she'd been sitting, towering over most of them. She'd dragged a chair over from Luke's office, not even caring that much about scuffing the floor of the building.

When Rey had pointed it out, Phasma had said that she wasn't giving Snoke the pleasure of a pretty building if she could help it. It...saddened Rey to hear the spite and the pain, but what hurt more was the simple acceptance from Poe and Ben that the building would be falling into the hands of a monster.

Despite all of them falling to the wayside as all of Snoke's attention zeroed in on Luke, they still shared in the sick vertigo that seemed to have become their constant companion, whispering nauseating truths and terrifyingly lies into their ears every day.

"Luke didn't say..." Rey trailed off uncertainly. "A few weeks before we went to tournament, Luke told me in private that  _we_  had a plan."

Phasma bit her lip and seemed to work the words out in her mind. "Who's 'we'?"

"Huh? I mean, he didn't tell me specifically who else was in on it...did he not talk to you guys?" Rey looked to Ben and Poe, only to see them shake their head in negative.

"Me and Luke haven't had time to talk about a lot of stuff," Ben frowned. "It's mostly just been him teaching me as much as possible about running classes and stuff. Things I should've learned while I was...not here."

There was an awkward pause as each of them remembered the vague details Ben had revealed about his time at  _The First Order_. The fight club had only been the culmination of Snoke's efforts, but one didn't get there just by being his favorite. You had to dig your way down into the pit, and the things Rey'd heard of what Ben had to do, what he'd had to do to others...well, she was grateful not having to be there during  _Gauntlet night,_  as Ben had so shiveringly recollected.

"Same here," Phasma concurred. The woman's face was pinched with fatigue and fugue. "He's been teaching me a lot of stuff...stuff I should have learned before actually becoming a Master. Stuff Snoke should have taught me."

Rey looked to Poe, who shrugged helplessly. "I haven't been able to be around much, you know that," he explained, though he looked mutinous with his own admission. "Been trying to get another volunteer position at a hospital a town over, in conjunction with my actual paying job. Some days I can barely sleep with how tired I am." There was a beat of silence. "It sucks, but I need to stay in the medical field so my resume isn't such a mess when I apply to med school again.."

And all she could say to that was, "Oh."

Awkward silence reigned. It was a Monday and somewhere out there, Rey knew, there were perfectly normal people living perfectly normal lives with perfectly normal problems. No decades long grudge driving the kind of petty vengeance that wouldn't have been out of place on a show divided into hour long chunks, interspersed with commercial breaks.

It was, in a word, complete  _bullshit._

"I can't possibly be the only one he told about this, right?" Rey tried once more, but each of her friends avoided looking at her.

Phasma looked frustrated, but not unduly so. This was clearly news to her and Rey imagined it probably chafed to be left out of the loop by a teacher  _again_. "Look, Rey, did he give any indication of what this plan even was? Did you ever think that maybe him giving up  _was_  the plan?"

Biting her tongue to stop herself from spewing the first thing on her mind, Rey thought back to her conversations with Master Luke in the last few months.

"I- no," she said, and she could literally feel herself deflate at those words. "He just said it had something to do with the tournament, which is why he asked me to be especially vigilant during it."

"Oh. is that why people kept asking me if the scary girl corralling all the white belts was from our dojang?" Poe asked. His normal grin was only at fifty percent assuredness, which really just meant he looked like a perfectly well-adjusted human being instead of the living battery that he usually was. "Because I got asked that a lot while we were there. I just thought they were talking about Phasma, but I guess it makes more sense that it was you."

"I feel like I should be offended," Phasma mused, the first sign of actual humor Rey'd seen from her in a week. "But yeah, I could see it."

"Hey!"

"Don't 'hey' me, cupcake," Phasma countered. "It's true. Or do you not remember waving a big-ass stick and laughing while we were fighting for our lives last year?"

"It was the adrenaline."

"I think you mean hormones," Poe grumbled, which, because her friends were the absolute worst, just garnered a short cynical laugh from Phasma. "You and Ben were practically pawing at each in the middle of the fight the whole time. I mean, I get it, but come on."

"Oh, that reminds me," Ben spoke up, ignoring the half-hearted teasing. He turned to Rey and looked her up and down, evaluating her form. "We should start you on staff training soon. The proper kind. I know Luke doesn't have any weapons available, but I know where we can get a good deal on training staves."

"You talk as if we'll have a place to practice after this, Ben," Poe pointed out. It was a reasonable doubt to have, especially considering who and what they were waiting for, but it was a dour and bitter douse of water on what had been a warm fire of comfort at the tail end of an incredibly shitty week.

Ben shrugged. "I trust Master Luke. If Rey says he had a plan, then I trust that too."

"You realize we're waiting right now for that monster to walk through those doors, sign the paperwork to buy this place, and kick us all out, right?" Phasma pointed out.

Rey never thought she'd be thankful for the past she had, but she was then because it was only lessons learned long ago that let Rey recognize the careful aloofness of a person already setting herself up to cut ties with people who gave a damn.

"And if I want to do keep working in any form in this field again, I'm not going to be able to stick around,' Phasma admitted. "People still think of me as  _that woman_  who recruited for Snoke. I won't have a leg to stand on in this town ever again. Not once this Dojang is sold. Nobody else will hire me to teach."

Looking uncertain, Ben turned to the woman as said, "What are you saying?"

"I  _mean_ , Benji, that if I ever want to be anything more than a burden on Hux and Rose, that I'd have to leave to find a job elsewhere. Hux is mobile, he can work remotely or another office job, but Rose..."

Right. Rose was a junior just the same as Rey, but Rey also knew that her sister, Paige, had worked tooth and nail to get Rose set up Coruscant University, and that the girl was also getting the kind of free ride on her tuition that wouldn't be possible anywhere else, especially for a non-emergency reason like keeping her polyamorous relationship stable.

"What about Maz's?" Rey couldn't help but ask.

Phasma shook her head. "And kill her business by having Snoke keep fucking with it? I'm not going to do that to the woman. Besides, I-" The woman looked troubled. "-I want to keep working in martial arts. It's all I've ever done. It was my first love. I don't want to have to give up this part of me just so I can  _not_  be afraid."

Doubt and unsurety spread through Rey, seeing her friend seem so vulnerable. It reminded her of the Phasma from their first ride back from Snoke's club - the scared girl who expressed admiration for the pure pigheadedness it took to confront Kylo Ren and believe he was still Ben Solo.

A girl who was afraid of being brave. Compared to the woman who was afraid of going back to being that way.

"It's kinda' the same for me," Poe said, drawing attention away from the blonde. He was slouching, looking at his reflection in the mirror. "All the places around here aren't looking for someone with my qualifications. I've got zero professional references willing to help me anymore and the job Leia set me up with is great for paying rent, but-"

"-but it's not the same." Rey finished for him, empathetic despite how much she didn't want to be.

Outside, a rumbling truck passed by. There was a slam of a car door, and Rey jolted at the sound.

"Sometimes the curtain are just blue," Phasma opined at last. "Look, I'm not saying Master Luke doesn't have a plan, but sometimes things are just as they are. I'm...going to pick that option for now. It'll hurt less, if I end up being right."

"That's a coward's way out," Rey said lowly.

A bitter chuckle was all Phasma had to say to that. "Haven't you met me, cupcake?" Phasma extended her arms to her side. "Hi, I'm Phasma. Professional coward."

"Stop that," Ben ordered. Both Rey and Phasma cut the beginning of what may have been an argument right there. "Rey, we're all frustrated, but that's no reason to take it out on anyone else. Phasma, stop with that self-deprecating crap." His lips twitched upwards in a faint smile. "There's only room for one mess in this group and that's me."

There was a brief moment when all three of them stared at Ben before they broke into undignified, but certainly welcome, giggles.

"You know," Poe said, squinting at Ben, "You started off pretty great. Your delivery could use some work though."

He shrugged. It struck her then, that despite her proposed faith in Master Luke, Ben was the only one who actually looked the most calm between the four of them. A wonder, considering they were waiting for Snoke to show up.

"At the tournament," Rey said, changing the subject. "Before the opening ceremony. You guys were missing. Did Luke go speak with anyone?"

The joints in her legs felt unearthly cold in the cool December air of the dojang, and she had to shake them out to stop from stiffening up.

"No one special," Phasma said non-committedly. "Kyung was there, but honestly the guy's basically become a permanent fixture to the background for a while. I know he and Luke had a private talk but I don't think anything came of it."

"I asked him about that, actually," Ben added. "He said he was just asking for us to be judged fairly and by our own actions, not his."

"That's it?"

The faint candlelight of hope flickered dangerously close to extinguishment. A nervous  _pitter-patter_  that she recognized as the flutter of anxiety flaring in her heartbeat was happening in the background, but Rey didn't dare pay attention to that any more than she was already. She was liable to panic if she did.

Ben somehow managed to make a shrug look apologetic. "It's all I got from him. The rest of the day was just him arguing with Snoke, whenever they didn't have other duties to get to."

"Oh good," Poe couldn't resist commenting, "so our Master's supposed plan was...what? Piss Snoke off even more, and in public?" There was a moment of awed appreciation before Poe looked to Ben. "Uh, no offence, Ben, but your Uncle's kind of insane."

"I'm sure he heard you," was Ben's amused reply. "Even if he's in his office. Sound travels pretty easily in these walls."

"Don't care. Still crazy. But like, maybe in a good way?"

There came a thumping from above, one that immediately drew Rey's attention.

"Probably one of Uncle Luke's boxes finally falling over," Ben explained, seeing her hummingbird-level twitchiness. "Last I heard, he's been packing things pretty intensely, and stacking them pretty high."

"Last you heard?" Phasma queried. "What, you not living here anymore?"

"Uh, no, I am, it's just," Ben looked to the side, avoiding her stare. "I've just been staying with Rey at my mom's. Luke asked me to give him some privacy these past few days." He looked distinctly uncomfortable as he said the next line. "Said he wanted to make peace with the place."

Mostly he'd been there because she'd been up at night, hearing drums in her dreams. It was easier to forget them when she woke up from nightmares and found herself in his arms.

"It sounds a lot like he's getting ready to sell this place, Ben," came Phasma's not unkind reply. Rey hated the gentle reproof in that tone, even if she couldn't find some way to argue with her.

The door to the dojang opened, and little jingles announced the arrival of a particular group of people.

"Hey," Finn said, raising his hands up. His grin was forced and stilted, but Rey appreciated him and its presence all the more. "Are we late?"

He looked at the four of them, virtually lounging in their dobok, and the closed office door, where they hadn't seen hide nor hair from Luke all morning. Behind him came Hux and Rose, bundled in appropriate winter wear for a day when the air hurt your face. The latter looked distinctly more red-cheeked than the other, but not, curiously enough, from blushing.

"Here, you can have my mittens," Hux said, taking his hand-knit covers off and practically forcing them on to her. "Why were you even waiting outside that long?"

Rose shrugged non committedly, her eyes falling on Rey for an all too brief moment before skirting away. There was a forced air of nonchalance about her, and she muttered an answer before leaning in to accept a brief kiss from Phasma. "I just got here early."

Things  _must_  have been off, even if Phasma was putting on a relatively good face. The day Phasma showed some sort of PDA, even the relatively innocent kind, was an unusual day.

"And you didn't wait at the diner because…?"

"Wanted to make sure I caught you guys going in," Rose explained, a bit too quickly. "I can't see this place all that well from across the street."

"Right," Hux said doubtfully, before looking at the main group. "Well, I guess we're all here then?"

"Everyone except for the monster of hour." Phasma nodded in the direction of the closed door. "Luke's been making some last minute phone calls all morning, but it's all deed transfer stuff as far as we can tell."

Once a sufficient amount of tense silence passed following that proclamation, Finn huffed. He took a hesitant step out onto the main floor of the dojang, coming around the partition separating guests from the main area.

"So this is it, then?" he asked, looking between Rey and her friend, "Our last stand?"

"Fuck that," Poe and Phasma said at once. They shared a look of pleasant surprise with each other before Poe offered her a fistbump, which Phasma accepted, her expression softening into something like fond resignment.

Phasma turned to Finn. "Sorry, but I've never been a fan of the whole last hurrah thing. I'm no hero. If things go south I'm kidnapping as many of you as I can stuff into my car and running. I'd rather us all survive than win with casualties."

"Yeah, see, you say you're not a hero and yet I distinctly remember someone setting fire to a building with me." Hux sounded obnoxiously pleased with that statement, a pleasant state of insanity that Rey had now associated with the man by default.

"Only because  _you_  were going to do it wrong," Phasma retorted, and wow, that was a blush on her face wasn't it? "We both know I've got a better throwing arm than you."

Rose looked between her two partners and shook her head. "Right, so ignoring my pyro boyfriend and girlfriend-"

"Hey!"

"I both resemble and resent that remark," Phasma replied cheekily.

Rose rolled her eyes and continued, "-who are we missing?"

"Just Snoke at this point," Rey shook her head. Despite the doom and gloom hovering around them, despite the fear and the uncertainty, despite the doubt that Luke's plan never had existed, she felt strangely at peace.

Suddenly, she felt a sense of rightness she'd never been able to place before, never before starting Taekwondo.

"The gang's all here," she said softly, realizing what that feeling was.

"Isn't Leia coming?" Finn asked, directing the question to Ben, who only signaled a negative.

"She had to leave early to take care of something important this morning." Ben frowned but pursed his lips. "She's been arranging the whole process. Property and estate lawyers, drawing up papers...she wants to make sure we don't get screwed by some obscure clause or something. She dropped off the contract this morning, but there are apparently some things that need to be hashed out with the bank."

Everyone nodded in understanding at that. With the exception of Rose, who'd been looking at a specific spot on the ceiling above them.

Before Rey could even think to ask her why she was acting off, the office door opened. It creaked slowly, drawing and squeegeeing the noise out like some prop from one of the stars of the Horribad Movie Nights. In unison, everyone quieted. Rey, Ben, and the others straightened, forming a line subconsciously in the middle of the floor and facing the door.

Grandmaster Luke stepped out. His uniform had been freshly ironed and pressed. The white popped against the bleak color of the dojang's lights, the black collar circling his neck like a symbol of great renown, or maybe a hangman's noose.

"He's here," he announced, and as if on cue there came the sound of a car door slamming shut with more force than strictly necessary.

The jolly jingle of the bells hanging above the entrance announced the arrival of Snoke. He strode into the building with more purpose and strength to his gait than Rey had ever scene from him. Satisfaction, or maybe just sadism, shown through as the man stopped at the threshold of the wooden floor, a trio of men behind him, the same squash-faced, thick-necked robots of sinew and bone from the diner.

A gust of wind slammed the door behind them, sending a reverberating groan throughout the rest of the building. Rey didn't so much as flinch at the sound, nor did she pay special mind to the ensuing thumps from upstairs.

There was passion in her stare as she tried to burn a hole in the man in front of her. Yet, despite that, there was peace as well. Peace grown and cultivated in this very building, through the efforts of those around her.

Passion, yet peace.

* * *

**Two Months Earlier**

"Ah, Master Kyung?"

Shin Kyung stopped in his tracks on hearing Luke's voice. He turned back and stepped away from the collective group of masters that had gathered in front of the entrance. Judging from the rumors, a special last minute guest was going to be performing the opening ceremony. It didn't take a genius to guess it was going to be Snoke.

Which worked just as well, in Luke's opinion.. Especially if his plan was to work as intended. Luke seeking out Kyung would have been odd in any other scenario since the man came and went at his leisure. And, were this not a very public event, Snoke would have taken steps to learn the contents of their meeting. Thankfully, it wasn't uncommon for grandmasters to speak to each other at tournaments..

"Master Skywalker?" Kyung asked, seeming perplexed. Luke couldn't really fault him for that. They didn't exactly have a cordial relationship, even within the professional setting. Even with thirty years past, Luke's mistakes came back to haunt him.

He looked back at Ben and Phasma, who'd taken to following behind him. After the two of them got the hint, they moved a few dozen feet away, hovering over a fountain like pair of giant birds.

Good kids, but neither of them were really suited for subtly.

He decided to simply jump right into it.

"How goes the investigation?"

Kyung's face took on a funny look. In his younger days, Luke would have compared it to constipation, but he'd been much less appreciative of the kind of work it took to get to and maintain Kyung's position.

"You know I can't discuss that with you, Master Skywalker," he said. Then came the carefully timed and precise facial tic indicating actual human emotion. "It's classified."

Luke nodded, accepting the answer for what it was. That was fine, he already had a general gist of what was going on. Kyung had already met with Amilyn regarding the ethical infractions that Rey had committed all those years ago. Selling homework wasn't the biggest dealbreaker with the man, but it had soured the image of Rey he'd had, at least until the little spitfire had impressed him with her performance of Keumgang a few weeks back.

Kyung had been making decent headway with his investigation and Luke knew it was only the man's thoroughness that had delayed him from reaching to the root of the matter after so long. He was putting off meeting with Unkar Plutt, but Luke suspected that was only so he could have a clear picture of the events preceding the fateful day in which Luke nearly broke another man's spine.

Part of him wished he'd done it.

Kyung turned, presumably to join the procession that they should have been in, but Luke stopped him, grabbing him by the elbow.

The man's head whipped back to stare down at where Luke was touching him without his express permission. Then, he released a long-suffering sigh, as if he couldn't wait to stop putting up with Luke and go back to more important things.

That was the bitterness talking. Luke reminded himself he still had need of Kyung, and that, when all was said and done, the man wasn't bad. His morals were just strictly aligned with that of Taekwondo, nothing else.

"When a student commits a mistake under a teacher's supervision," Luke prompted at last, carefully choosing his words, "who is at fault?"

Kyung look turned curious. "The students, of course. We teach those under us to accept responsibility for their choices." An edge of impatience bled into his voice. "You know that."

"And if the teacher chose to permit the student to continue, fully aware that it may happen again in the future?"

"Then the teacher assumes some degree of responsibility as well, should it happen again. People do not exist in a vacuum, were the world so kind." He looked at Luke, as if seeing him for the first time. "Master Skywalker, what are you getting at?"

"Those kids back there? My kids back in the convention center?" Luke jerked a thumb back at Ben and Phasma. "Don't judge them for what I've done. Judge them on their own merits."

They stood in one of the side halls of the convention center, used for panels and meetings as opposed to immense gatherings. Business-plain beige walls were the most adventurous thing about the aesthetic of the place, which really said all that needed to be said about the kind of minds that decided  _this_  was where a martial arts tournament needed to be held.

Kyung pulled his arm away, and smoothed out the fabric where Luke had crumpled it. "Is this a confession, Master Skywalker? Should I be calling the police?"

_Bingo._

Luke made very sure not to give away any of the triumph he felt in his expression.

Craft the narrative. Shape their view.

Luke needed the scrutiny off Ben and Rey and the others as much as possible. He'd already written off getting Snoke brought up on any charges relating to that illegal fight club. Too much time had passed and too many people were invested in making sure those operations were never put under scrutiny by the authorities.

That was fine. Luke had never held serious hope of cutting off all the heads of this hydra. He just needed to take care of a very specific one.

And for that, Kyung needed to stop caring about Ben and Rey.

"I'm just saying," Luke said, quietly but pointedly. "When you're walking around today, undoubtedly getting a feel for how the other masters and schools perceive me and my school, just keep an ear out. You already have a feel for what they're like, but I can guarantee you, they're going to shine today." He looked back to see Ben and Phasma idly chatting, snickering like school kids. Even as masters they couldn't stop talking and joking with each other. "They're good kids."

"Appealing to sentimentality isn't going to get you anywhere," Kyung said bluntly.

"Yeah, it's sentimental, but it's also truth." Luke decided to push the aloof, arrogant bit a little more and decided to add, "A student shouldn't have to handle his Master's problems, and yet you'll see just that today."

"...what do you mean?"

"I mean that Ben and Rey have inherited a whole host of issues regarding Snoke and my father."

The first true roots of doubt displayed on Kyung's face at those words. It would seem that he didn't know how to parse sheer amount of utter loathing Luke had injected into that statement. "I'm aware that you and Master Snoke have differences but-"

"If he were on fire and begging me for help I'd toss kerosene on him just for the lightshow."

Kyung's mouth dropped open.

_Ah, there we go._

Luke really did feel bad for interrupting Kyung; the man wasn't bad, he was simply a bureaucrat. But part of driving attention away from Ben and Rey entailed directing it elsewhere, and Luke went to the  _Han Solo Fly By The Seat of Your Pants_  school of distractions, which basically entailed being as insulting as possible while being as  _loud_  as possible.

"You realize you're not helping your position by admitting this to me?" Kyung said at last, after recomposing himself.

"A martial artist must always be honest, no?"

"There's a certain thing called tact as well! Honesty is one thing, but disguising your thinly veiled disgust with another master behind the mask of truth is falsehood on another level."

Luke paused and tried to make sense of the words. As much as he liked a philosophical discourse, he'd never been eloquent enough to converse at length with anyone else. He found most other Grandmasters to be rather dry and dull individuals, with a sense of humor born somewhere around the seventeenth century.

The skin of Kyung's cheeks, normally so taught from his own natural grit, had gained an interesting flush of embarrassment, as if scandalized or appalled at being in the mere presence of such words.

"I'm just saying," Luke said, stepping back and raising his hands, "People don't exist in a vacuum. You'll see today that both Ben and Rey make each other better instead of worse. I know their personal relationship is part of your investigation, but I think you should look closer. You've seen toxic relationships in a Taekwondo setting - you know all the signs to look for. They've been nothing but professional and appropriate within the confines of the dojang, and they'll excel today as well."

Kyung's flinty stare could have chilled the sun. "I'll be the judge of that."

He turned on his heel and left, definitely missing the grin that finally spread across Luke's face.

The seed of doubt was planted. Luke had his inside agent following Rey as well, so he'd know of any potential complication with her today, too. He would have gotten one of the others to tail Ben, but he was going to be under enough scrutiny by the other black belts, this being his tournament debut as master, and to be honest Rey was the bigger troublemaker.

Just that thought alone made him wish for an antacid. Luke didn't think he'd ever fully gotten across just what kind of sick, crushing worry he'd faced the night they'd gone to Snoke's club. Getting a phone call from a distressed Rose in the middle of the night and the follow-up hour and a half as he fought alongside his students had cut the remainder of his lifespan in half.

The kids could deal with their grandmaster getting an extra grilling or three by Kyung.

Now, all he had to do was find Snoke and make a nuisance of himself.

Luke couldn't fight the smile this time, even as he, Ben, and Phasma rushed to enter the main convention hall, joining up with Rey and they others.

He was going to get to see his kids in their element and freely insult Snoke.

What more could he ask for?

* * *

**Present Day**

In accordance with everything, Luke and Snoke came prepared. Luke had Poe go around to everyone with a black fabric bag that seemed to swallow light, collecting everyone's phones and or other internet capable devices while Snoke had his men run check the locker rooms and the immediate outside of the building for any official authority lying in wait.

"I'm sure you understand," he said as he sat in the guest chair in the office, "I have to protect my interests."

Rey didn't rise to the bait, mostly because she was wondering how much trouble she could get into by tiger clawing his throat. Too much to be worth it, probably.

Luke sank down into his chair behind the desk. The old wood had faded even further over the years, with vestigial coffee stains everywhere and lacquer faded or simply gone entirely in certain spots of the surface. What had been a fairly tidy, if cramped office, had only gotten more cramped and less tidy over time.

Rey and Ben stood to the side, observing. Snoke had elected to leave his stooges outside, because per his words, he would face his enemies with a heart devoid of fear.

Rey didn't miss the roiling tension in Ben's shoulders at the mention of Snoke's twisted definition of  _Indomitable Spirit_ , and she also didn't miss the nasty look Luke shot Snoke when he heard the words. The bastard was rubbing it in their faces. Rubbing in the twisted lessons he'd be teaching in their home.

"Here're the documents," Luke said, picking up a neat stack of papers that he'd set aside and sliding it across. "I've included documentation proving ownership as of this morning too, so you know I didn't just sell it to someone else."

Nimble, spindly fingers probably held together by sheer concentrated malice grabbed the packet and started rifling through. Snoke was humming, virtuoso of madness that he was as he moved papers around, inspecting them quickly before proceeding to the next.

"Not even you would be so foolish as to do that," Snoke murmured, eyeing the documentation. "The history tied in this building...your teachers would writhe in the grave at the mere thought of it." A spark of something cruel graced his lips as they pulled upwards in mimicry of a smile. "This is  _his_  legacy we're speaking of, after all."

Luke narrowed his eyes at Snoke. "Do you want to know what Anakin Skywalker's last words were?"

Snoke's arachnid-like appendages twitched, a small curl of reflex buried among an entangled web of calculated bodily motions. He was more puppet than person, slave to the evil behind those eyes, shackled to ephemeral and unknowable horrors of the past. A careful exhale was the only other indicator of Snoke's reaction, and Rey had to ignore the sudden urge to check her skin for any climbing insects.

"I will only request this of you once, Master Skywalker," Snoke said at last, having put the packet down. He met Luke's carefully neutral stare with something capable of melting steel beams. "Do not say his name in this building ever again. You won't like what I do about it. You don't deserve to speak his name, never mind be his  _son._ "

It shouldn't have been possible for mere words to promise poison and necrosis the way his did. A warning glance from Luke stifled her outrage, but Rey decided that if it kept going for much longer she'd introduce Snoke's face to the desk, preferably via body-slam.

Her master turned back to Snoke. "This is still my home. My dojang. Don't go thinking that just because I'm selling it you can tell me or my students what to do." An angry crimson had taken perch in his expression, and that aura - that presence that Rey had seen so few times, manifested itself. "So  _kindly_  shut the hell up before I decide to break your nose again. With a brick, this time."

Snoke chuckled. "I find it ironic, that you, the man who purports himself a proponent of a more peaceful way of training, of a more honorable way, are always the first to resort to violence."

Another chuckle, just as noxious as the rest. "Truly, you are a despicable man, through and through. You live in your castle of lies and and you pretend to be better than me, to be better than  _him._ " He spat, though no spittle actually hit anything. "You are a disgrace to his name. You don't  _deserve_  his name."

Luke just looked...bored. "And yet, here I am, all these years later and still alive." Something vicious and cold shone in Luke's eyes and for a second it was like looking at a pair of twins. "Who's the disgrace now, Snoke?"

Survival instincts demanded Rey throw herself under the desk because suddenly the air in the office smelled like blood and she could hear the  _thump-thump-thump_  of drums in her ears that she knew to just be her own heartbeat shrieking at her to fucking move out of the way.

Snoke stood, practically slamming his hands on the desk. "You stand before me defeated!" he hissed. " _I_ have the pictures,  _I_  have the power to ruin your lives with but a word! You are a thief and a cretin Luke Skywalker, and I will strike your name from history because you have  _squandered_ his greatness, relegated it to the role of a mere  _babysitter._ "

The man licked his lips and it took every ounce of concentration not to look away from the sheer aura of fury that threatened to burn her eyes. "You  _stole_  his world from me, set fire to my life, and then, as if to mock me, you turned his grandchild into….that!"

Snoke jabbed a finger at Ben.

"Me?" Ben asked, pointing to himself. He looked surprised to actually be a part of the conversation as anything more than a witness

"Yes, you!"

Righteous ire and apocalyptic rage manifested and perhaps then Rey learned just how truly  _wrong_  Snoke was. She'd known of his hate, of his persistent desire to control, the rabid thing that hungered for darkness in that skull, but she'd never understood the kind of infection that dominated the man.

"You! You, who were meant to surpass me! You, who were meant to be his magnum opus! You, who were meant to be the chosen one! A warrior born in fire and bathed in blood! A living masterpiece born of  _his_  blood and raised in  _his_  ho-"

Rey put up a hand to silence him. "Yeah  _no_ , fuck that."

Snoke stopped, and Rey was immensely proud of herself for facing that hell shining in his stare without flinching. She stepped in front of Ben protectively, shielding him from Snoke with her own body, for all the good it would do.

She swallowed and then demonstrated she'd clearly inherited Luke's survival instincts if she thought provoking this man was a good idea. "Ben isn't yours. He isn't some  _thing_  to own. He's a person."

"He is my student!" Snoke shot back, and she ignored the corrosive cloud that was the air he breathed. "He is mine to teach! My teacher would have demanded no less than what I did. It is because of  _you_ and Skywalker that Kylo Ren failed - that I failed my teacher. You  _turned_  him from his destiny." A wet hacking sigh. "Worthless girl, do you even know the tale into which you stepped into?"

His tone could have stripped bark from trees and salted the earth, and had this been any other time, had this man not been threatening everything in her life - her  _family_  - Rey would have run for the hills because  _holy crap_  this was a level of crazy best kept three states away and buried under a mountain of C4.

And yet, she looked at the man and realized something. For a man who looked so very much on the edge of victory, about to accomplish a life goal born within probably his darkest moments...he also looked terrified. As if he couldn't believe this was actually happening, after so long.

For the first time, Rey completely understood something Luke had said a while ago.

Snoke was pitiful. Dangerous, so incredibly dangerous that she felt like she was balancing on the razor-thin edge between outright insanity and stupidity just by talking to him...but still pitiful.

"The only thing I did," Rey said, calmly, firmly and proudly, with nary a halt in speech and tongue, "was prove that he had a home with us, no matter his mistakes. Just as he and Luke once did for me."

Snoke looked at her strangely, as if she were some strange exotic creature he couldn't comprehend.

Ben cleared his throat, diverting Snoke's attention away from Rey. He squeezed her shoulder comfortingly before he too stepped up beside her and stared down the man responsible for so much horror in his life.

"They never made me do anything," Ben stated at last. There was a quiet, confident strength to him that made Rey love him all the more. "I was the one who chose to leave. I was the one who chose to stand when you said to kneel." He frowned. "And I was the one to take my name back."

"Kylo Ren  _is_  your name."

"It was my prison," Ben corrected, gently. Somehow, through the course of the conversation the tables had turned and suddenly they were staring down at the open maw of a wounded animal too shaken to do much more than snipe weakly at them with venom that no longer worked. "A prison I've broken free of."

Something wavered in Snoke's stare. He raised a hand as if to cup Ben's face. "You don't know what you're saying. You...they...they broke you. My student. My-"

Ben flinched, something primitive and raw rising to the surface at being confronted with his former master's touch once more, and Rey was about to slap the hand out of the way because like hell was Snoke ever laying a hand on Ben agai-

An older, more experience arm whipped and clutched Snoke's outstretched arm with a vice so fierce and and protective she was surprised Snoke didn't burst into flames right then and there.

"My nephew is not your  _anything_  anymore, Alistair." Luke cut in harshly, not even pretending at cordiality at this point. "And if you ever try to touch any of my kids again I swear to  _god_  I will break your fucking arm."

Terror like nothing Rey had ever seen from Snoke appeared for a brief instant. The kind of pure, atavistic terror that was ingrained on a biological level. It was more than the fear of death - it was something small and pathetic realizing just how small and pathetic it actually was.

It was the fear of dictators, tyrants, and monsters across history who sought to carve their spot with the bodies of others and the desperate maddened realization that however much they struggled, they were  _nothing_ in the grand scheme of things.

That look was gone in a flash, and suddenly Rey saw weakness in his stance that he disguised with undue self-assurance. Frailty in his expression that he masked with the feigned smugness of a businessman.

He jerked his arm away from Luke and spared Ben and Rey one last scathing glance before meeting Luke's eyes. "I think we have business to attend to."

It was a weak ploy and everyone there saw through it.

"Not so fast," Luke drawled, smirking. "Suddenly, I find myself rethinking this..."

Snoke's breath came out harshly. "You're lying."

Luke practically snickered. "No, not really. You see," he gestured to Rey and Ben, "I just realized something. You want to know what?"

He didn't even wait for a response before he grinned.

"We can beat you. In fact we've  _already_  beaten you." He grabbed the contract from the desk and held in both of his hands as if readying to rip it. "So I think this contract can go right to he-"

Snoke exploded, reaching for the contract. "No!"

A maelstrom of emotion was visible in his face. His previously tenuous control was gone.

"Oh?" Luke's eye brow was raised as if actually surprised by the reaction. Rey didn't say or do anything, too in awe of this masterful play, realizing just how vast the difference between the two men was. "And what do you have to offer me? Why  _shouldn't_  I rip this up?"

Snoke licked his lips. She could practically see the narrowed irises of his eyes, pinpricks of darkness focused on the stack of papers in Luke's hand like it was a lifeline.

"I'll release the pictures to the police."

Luke shrugged. "Do it and I'll turn this place into a pile of kindling."

 _Everyone_  reacted at that. "You wouldn't dare!" Snoke uttered, appalled, aghast, and horrified at the mere mention. "No master would torch their life's work! It- it would be sacrilege!"

For some reason, Luke was looking right at Ben and Rey. "Life's work, huh?" A funny little smile crossed his face. "I'd say we have a definition of what that is."

"I'll have you brought up on charges of arson, then," Snoke said bluntly, rapidly trying to regain control. "How long do you think you could survive in jail, Master Skywalker? A week? A month? You're not made for-"

"How long can you survive without clinging to the empty, cold words of Anakin Skywalker?" Luke retorted. "Ben's a lost cause to you now, even you can see that. But this building...well, I might just be willing to listen to you...if you can be reasonable."

A hush fell between the two men.

"What do you want?" Snoke demanded.

Rey wondered how it was nothing had really changed and yet suddenly the tables were turned. But, that was what happened when one man wanted something so desperately, and one...apparently had nothing to lose.

Luke's smile was grand and masterful, and she realized something - some part of his plan - had just fallen into place.

The entire room was a boiling pot of chaos waiting to be unleashed but finally she could see the faint strings of orders tying it all together. Controlled calamity guided to one very specific purpose, one that she had no way knowing just yet.

Chaos, yet order.

And then Luke said the one thing she'd never expected.

"Fight me."

* * *

**One Month Earlier**

"Remember what you said, back during the tournament? Regarding responsibility for one's mistakes?"

Kyung was in his office, looking over the drafts that he had requested for Luke's next promotion. He had on a pair of reading glasses, small square ones that magnified the man's usual pretentiousness by a factor of ten.

"I recall that conversation," he said, because apparently a simple 'Yes' wouldn't suffice. He uncrossed his legs and lay the papers in his hand to the side, grabbing a small yellow notepad that he used for observations. "Is  _this_  the confession now?"

"Don't be difficult," Luke responded. He and Kyung would never truly get along, simply due to their core values being so different, but he could at least tolerate the man...for his kids' sake. "But...yes. I need to confess to some things. On one condition."

Kyung wasn't usually one for emoting. Probably used up too much energy for that robot brain of his and thus deemed inefficient and not necessary. But piquing his interest was much like what Luke imagined those people who studied life within a single puddle of world did. Kyung was thorough and he was never satisfied but there were simply some things that were too juicy to not care about.

Kyung balanced his glasses carefully, the closest to a sign of anxiousness Luke had ever seen from him. "I'm not usually in the business of treatising with those who violate the Taekwondo Federation regulations, Master Skywalker."

"You are if it means doing right by Taekwondo as a whole."

Luke sighed, and then bid everything he ever knew goodbye with his next statement. "Let me have one last promotion. One more, and I'll tell you everything."

A long moment of appreciation passed and Luke could see the man weigh the scales. This, right here, was what would truly make or break his plans. If Kyung decided to simply damn the request and demand an answer, the three-pronged strike Luke had prepared would lose one of its most crucial edges.

"Are Miss Kenobi and Master Solo involved in your confession in any way?" Kyung asked at last. "Are any of your students?"

Luke shook his head. "No less than any student under a teacher's supervision would be."

"You realize what this could possibly entail?"

Luke did. He actually welcome it, too. "There is a dangerous influence in my students' lives, Master Kyung, and I endeavor to end it before it goes too far."

"You're speaking of Master Snoke," Kyung said doubtfully.

"You don't have to believe me," Luke added pragmatically. "You don't even have to say anything. Just go out of town for a few weeks, just enough for him to think you've left without finding anything."

Kyung ran a hand through his hair. "That is against the  _rules_  Master Skywalker. Why can't we just involved the police then? Why shouldn't I involve the police?"

Carefully, he passed the flash drive containing the recordings from their tournament. His agent had captured some interesting conversations between Ben, Rey and Snoke that he was sure Kyung would find convincing. Kyung accepted it without barely a nod.

"Because between the two of us, you are the one who cares more about Taekwondo," Luke admitted.

Once upon a time he may have been offended at comparing things like that, but that was a time from before he had those two moody teenagers under his roof. "And I know for a fact that you want nothing more than to see it purged of its more...distasteful...elements. The police don't have the right authority to do that."

Kyung nodded, accepting that answer. Then he glared at Luke, as if daring him to lie to his next question. "And you Master Skywalker? What do you want?"

Luke smiled fondly, thinking of the two idiots in love who seemed to delight in giving him near heart attacks regularly.

"I want my family to be happy."

* * *

**Present Day**

It was, quite possibly, the riskiest and dumbest plan Rey had ever heard.

And that was really saying something considering her entire strategy the second time she'd gone in the ring to face Ben had been half-formed ideas on how to flirt with her long-time crush.

A fight. If Luke won, Snoke dropped the subject matter of the photos. If Snoke won, Luke would sell the dojang to him and whatever other consequences came of it, he wouldn't complain.

Supposedly.

If it had been Rey agreeing to this stupid plan, she would have crossed every single finger, toe, and appendage she could hide when shaking on that deal, because there was no way anyone with half a sane mind would actually plan on  _sticking_  to such a bullshit agreement.

"Remind me how we got here again?" Finn asked from where they stood off to the side. The mats had been brought out ("For safety," Luke had said, eyes twinkling) and made a large twenty-five by twenty-five foot square in the centre of the room. It wasn't the same size as a regulation match area, but there was nothing regulation about this.

Rey decided how she should answer that very carefully and decided that honesty was the best policy. "Our master's crazy."

Across the hall she could see the three men Snoke had brought with him jerk at her words. She imagined that such disrespect in the sanctity of the dojang or place of practice was unheard of in their limited worldview and she felt a brief burst of pity for those men. She loved and respected Luke, but after everything he'd ever done for them - was  _still_ doing for them - he deserved as much honesty from her as she could give.

Down the line they stood in, Phasma nodded. "Agreed."

Ben looked a little uncomfortable openly discussing his uncle's sanity when the man was kneeling in front of the mirror wall, not even fifteen feet away from them, but he too made a vague expression of agreement.

It was Poe who offered a dissenting opinion by saying, "This is the best plan I've heard all year. I said right from the beginning we should just punch the guy."

Finn looked at his boyfriend with the kind of frustration that Rey imagined would become well-worn into his face in a few years' time. "You would like this sort of idiotic plan, wouldn't you?"

"What?" Poe shrugged. "I'm just saying. A good kick in the nuts solved our problems last time, who's to say it wouldn't this time?"

"I was much rather thinking a broken nose would work, Mr. Dameron," Luke spoke up from where he'd been meditating. He opened one of his eyes and spared them a glance. "It would go much better with his current complexion."

Snoke had gone into the lockers to change. Apparently the man's goons kept a spare dobok on hand for him at all times, because of  _course_  you never knew when you would need to change into your uniform to participate in a unregulated fight.

Rey shook her head in wonder. The man was truly sick. He couldn't even recognize his students as anything more than glorified attack dogs and slaves, there to serve his whim.

"You have to admit, Master Luke," Rey said tentatively, looking at each of her friends, "This is a bit...unusual for you. You're the one who's always telling us to never get into a fair fight."

"I am, aren't I?" Something about that statement seemed exceedingly amusing to him. "Well, rules are meant to be broken, don't you think?"

She was glad she wasn't the only one who just stared at him. Maybe the stress of it all had finally gotten to Luke and he'd finally snapped.

"Sir...are you okay?" Ben asked, seeking help from anyone willing to back him up.

The tightness at the edge of Luke's eyes lightened, tension fading as he looked between each of them. It was the same look he had when he handed Rey her second dan just a little over a week ago.

"Never better, son," Luke assured.

It was then that Snoke chose to exit the changing rooms.

The dobok looked practically brand new on him, even though Rey could recognize the old style of design and characters in the lettering and the way certain symbols were sewn into the fabric. It looked, shockingly enough, a lot like what Luke wore. Another sign of their shared past.

"My master bestowed this upon me when I first gained my black belt," Snoke said as he stepped into the room. "It seems only fitting that I wear it the day I reclaim what's his."

Luke stood and faced him. He looked him up and down and snorted. "God, you're pretentious."

Snoke's face turned an ugly shade of puce.

He'd regained some of his composure in his time alone, but if Rey squinted she could see the signs of a normal man beneath the facade of a monster. The conversation in the office had taken Snoke's power from him, somehow. The fear he provoked, the imminent sense of danger...it wasn't gone, but no longer did it overwhelm her senses. All she saw now was a man stuck in his past, unable to move forward, desperate to drag everyone else down with him.

"What are the rules of this bout?" Snoke asked. He began circling the mat from the point from which he stepped on it.

"We kick each other's asses until one of us wins." Luke quirked his lips. "Pretty simple."

A predatory smile answered his statement. "Indeed. And you truly will sign the documents should I win?"

Luke nodded, also moving into a circular movement, facing his opponent. "And when I win, you'll hand over the photos and quit bothering us?"

Snoke's stance was loose and deadly, like a viper lying in wait. "Should that happen? Yes, I will."

'Should' vs 'When'. It was like magic in plain sight, and Rey wanted to point that out, but she didn't for fear of breaking the mystique.

No longer had he been content with letting things be and killing them slowly. Now Snoke sought them out and made demands.

He hadn't entered a building on his own. The last two times she'd seen him, he had the same three hulking guards around, ready to attack and defend at a moments notice.

It hit her then. Snoke was  _afraid_  of them. He was a wild animal backed into a corner, lashing out and desperate.

And now Snoke was even openly acknowledging his own fallibility, never even mind the calm sureness that Luke had. It was like Luke knew he'd somehow already won, which didn't make any sense to Rey, since she couldn't see any conceivable reason why these two would stick to either end of their bargains.

Rey blinked, seeing a small blink of light appear somewhere in her vision. She looked up, trying to spot the small dot that had just as quickly disappeared. The blink of light seemed familiar somehow, triggering a sense of deja vu that she couldn't place. The only thing she saw was a hole in the ceiling that Luke had been meaning to get fixed. It was the same spot that Rose had been looking up at earlier…

"I think we need to set the mood for this," Luke said, interrupting her thoughts. He said it jokingly, with yet more of the thrice-damned know-it-all tone. He looked to their group. "Any suggestions?"

All of them just stared at each other. That was, until Poe suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Be right back!" he said, and off he went without warning or care or notice of where he'd be coming back from.

He returned from Luke's office not even thirty seconds past his proclamation carrying the speakers they used for creative poomse. He plugged it into the closest outlet and then awkwardly looked up. "Uh, I'm going to need my phone for this…"

"Go get it then," Snoke huffed. "Just know that if you record this you will regret being born, boy."

Looking unimpressed, but for once keeping his mouth shut, Poe retrieved his phone from the black bag which had been set aside holding all their electronics. He passed Rey by, having unlocked his phone, and it was only adrenaline that let Rey catch a glimpse of the message saying that there was a new Wifi network available nearby.

She frowned. Something about that didn't sit right with her.

But thoughts of that were banished when she heard which song Poe had put on.

It only took her a few seconds, but after that she couldn't decide whether she want to hug or strangle the man, because if there was a song choice for most inappropriately placed song  _ever_ , this was it.

All around her, her friends started snickering. Ben, ever the composed, dour, man that he was, only smirked, but she could see the tremble to his Adam's apple indicating that he was trying his hardest to hold back a loud, undignified guffaw.

The whole situation was completely absurd.

("It's not even the right martial art, idiot," Hux said, trying to keep his own chortles from drawing too much attention.)

"Really, Master Skywalker?" Snoke said at last, dryly. Probably trying to regain some of the lost ambiance. "You can't even control your own students?" Disdain and sorrow, mixed with mocking was his next dish to serve. "Truly his bloodline has fallen far from his aspirations."

Luke looked at them. Really looked at them, and despite the complete absurdity of the situation, she saw nothing but pride in his expression.

"No, Snoke," Luke shook his head. "Those idiots? Those're my kids."

It was then that Snoke and Luke, each circling each other and wandering closer and closer to each other like two asteroids on a collision course ordained by the universe, finally met. What followed wasn't so much a clash as it was a bizarre exchange of grips and grasps and sudden, jerky movements. Rey got the impression it all meant a lot more than it seemed, and many of the moves she hadn't yet learned..

The two of them broke off, but not before Snoke lashed out with a rising elbow strike that would have broken bone had it made contact. Luke didn't block it. Instead he ducked under the strike and jabbed a knife-hand into soft spot between Snoke's tricep and his chest.

Hissing, Snoke backed away.

Both of them were already breathing hard.

It was...quite unlike Rey had ever seen. She'd seen black belts spar (she'd  _been_  a black belt sparring another black belt) but this was something else entirely.

They paused, and then began circling each other again. Feet moved more carefully this time, treading space that they hadn't before.

Their next clash came more quickly. This time, Snoke didn't bother with a strike. Instead, he barreled forward, practically exploding with the kind of speed Rey had never expected from a man his age. His stance shifted lower, and his arms came up, and whip-crack punches came in fast, blazing, carving a trail of light behind them with each strike. The first leading jab struck Luke in the temple, him having barely swerved his head out of the way, and the combination of punches that pummeled into Luke's chest came in such quantity and in such ferocity Rey felt sick.

She was about to lunge in when Ben wrapped an arm around her waist. His face was grave, and deeply concerned, but he shook his head. As much as it killed her not to jump in, the hesitation make it sink in.

This was part of the plan.

"Shit, this isn't good," Poe muttered, all previous amusement with the fight vanished. "We have to put a stop to thi-"

Luke took one final punch and, instead of bouncing back, he spun, absorbing the hit and turning on his heel with the blow and slammed a spinning backfist right into Snoke's waiting block, in front of his face.

Both of them winced and broke away.

Rey blinked, realizing something was very off with this. For one thing, despite engaging twice with Snoke, Luke hadn't gone for any kicks. Those were his forte, at all. For another…

Why the hell was he  _smiling_ after that _?_

The way he moved...it was with strength, but also, some sort of serenity.

Were those bells she was hearing?

Rey immediately tore her eyes away from the match and looked to the entrance, where two people had just entered. One of them was Leia, her face grim and resolute as walked inside wearing dark clothing and professional looking royal blue peacoat, as if she'd been coming from a meeting with a executive board.

The other was Kyung.

Rey's heart leapt to her throat and she wanted to scream out a warning even if it was too late. She didn't know the exact rules regarding conflict between grandmasters, but she was damn sure getting involved in a highly unregulated, ethically compromised fight where literal criminal charges were staked and wagered fell under the category of "Just Don't".

If they got caught fighting, then surely Luke would be-

Oh.

Oh  _no._

It hit and hurt Rey with the kind of brutal snap-kick to the chest in the form of realization that knocked the world askew and forever changed her perspective of someone.

Luke and Snoke kept up their careful predatory dance. Neither one of them seemed aware of anything else.

"Do you know what I hate the most about you?" Snoke asked Luke quietly. They were alone now, no longer playing gladiator for the fate of a building that Rey realized never really meant that much in the first place.

"I'm sure you'll tell me," Luke said amiably.

Snoke roared and tried to go in for a snapping kick combination. In a show of deja vu that had her wondering if she'd time traveled, Luke side-stepped the kick and instead of severely punishing Snoke for his folly, simply tapped the man in various spots. He snapped back viciously, striking a glancing blow against Luke's gut that left him wheezing, but something stopped Snoke from pursuing or following up.

Rey eyed his hard-breathing form. How long had it been since Snoke had practiced? How long had it been since Snoke had pushed himself, as Luke undoubtedly had?

You simply couldn't fight against time or age, no matter how much you struggled. No matter how much Snoke had evidently struggled.

There was something wet dribbling down Snoke's chin as he stared hatefully at his contemporary. Spit or sweat, she couldn't tell. The more time passed the more he looked like a fractured old man.

"I hate you because you could have had it. You could have been his success in this pitiful and disgusting world." If it was even possible Snoke's glare grew tenfold. "I know he offered you the chance to join him, and you simply spat in his face and walked away. I…." A shiver of revulsion shook through him. "And then you killed him."

Luke shook his head, and instead simply said. "He died in a burning building."

"That  _you_  left him in!" Snoke howled. He attempted to engage once more, leaping for Luke, but his mind was cashing checks his body couldn't keep and he only limply grabbed on to Luke's forearm.

Without even so much as a grunt of effort, Luke yanked his arm out of the man's grip. He tensed, adjusted himself, and Rey recognized the sign of a palm strike that would break ribs, and it was only at the last second that Luke seemed to reconsider. He stopped, barely an inch away from making contact, before he huffed.

Snoke was staring up at Luke, bent over, exhausted and torn down by his own body.

Luke turned around and walked away.

"Don't you walk away from me!" Snoke bellowed. It was the maddened yowl of an animal, no longer man. "Don't you dare walk away from me like you did him!"

Her master looked pained, and saddened. Shoulders sagged, he looked up at the ceiling for a brief moment, as if seeking guidance from something or someone not there, before he looked back at Snoke.

"Do you want to know the last thing my father ever told me, before he pushed me out of the way of a burning beam? Before he saved my life?"

"Lies!" Snoke shrieked. Knives and acid to human ears. "You killed him!  _You killed him!_ "

The man was practically frothing at the mouth now.

A long moment of consideration passed. The dojang was silent.

"One word. That's all he said."

Like a great weight being lifted from his shoulders, Grandmaster Luke straightened, and said that one word.

" _Family."_

* * *

**Four Days Earlier**

Luke had no choice but to smile fondly at the girl who sat in front of him. She'd grown up  _so_  very much since she'd first stepped into his Dojang, cheerful and hopeful, full of warmth and light. As an adult, she was sharper and keener, but otherwise, her cheer and hope had only increased.

She tilted her head curiously, and he decided it was probably time to explain his plan. Or at least, her part in it.

"Is everything okay, Master Luke?"

What a loaded question that was.

He sighed, "Not yet. It will be, but I need your help."

"Me?" She seemed taken aback, and Luke supposed he couldn't blame her. It was a  _little_ out of the blue. She paused, and finally asked, "How can I help?"

So ready to assist as needed. Still the same kind girl she'd always been, just stronger and wiser. Luke was beyond proud of the person she'd become - of the friend she'd become to so many others, and he smiled. "Well, I need you to sign some papers for me. And do you have any cash on you?"

She frowned. "Uh...I think I have a couple of bucks, but I don't usually carry cash."

"That's okay," he said quietly, ignoring the questions in her eyes. He stared down at the papers he'd never thought he'd be signing. Or, well, he'd never thought he'd be signing them with anyone other than Ben. Drastic times and drastic measures, though.

"That's fine," he repeated, "just a dollar will do. I'll need you to give me one so we don't have to deal with the sort of taxes you'd be hit with if this was a gift. It'll still draw some eyes, but me and Leia will help with that too."

Dark eyes narrowed at him, and she leaned over his desk to get a better look at the papers he'd been looking over. A quick glance at them and suddenly her eyes shot open, her gaze landing on him. Clever girl. She'd figured it out without him needing to explain it.

"Master Luke, are you serious?  _That_ 's what you want me to sign? That's insane."

"It might be," he laughed, nodding. "Why don't I explain my plan and how this fits into it, and then you can decide whether or not you want to help."

She studied him for a moment, and relaxed back in her chair, arms folded.

"Okay," she said hesitantly. "I'm listening."

* * *

**Present Day**

Snoke's face went slack with shock for a moment. Part of Rey was curious as to what was going on in his mind. The other didn't want to ever think of the man again.

Luke spotted Leia and Kyung over Snoke's shoulder and visibly perked up.

"Heya Shin," Luke said, giving the man a jaunty wave. "Was that enough for you?"

Snoke jerked. His eyes widened and he spotted Leia and, more importantly, Kyung in the mirror. He straightened suddenly, visibly wincing, and faced Kyung, bowing immediately and far lower than Rey had ever seen the man bow before.

"Grandmaster Kyung!" Snoke whispered feebly. The shock was ebbing away and what came in its wake, Rey could only sum as terrible, terrible rage. "My deepest apologies, I- I- I didn't know you were-"

Kyung, wearing the same suit he'd worn the first time he'd walked through those doors to upturn Rey's life, raised a fist, commanding silence with but a gesture.

On the other side of the dojang, Snoke's men simply looked lost.

Their master had not won.

Alistair Snoke had been one hundred percent, absolutely, definitively, completely defeated. Rey almost pitied those men, because she could see that a fundamental core of their world had been shaken, and suddenly up could be down or the blue could be tuna fish for all the sense they were making.

One thing was for sure, even if Rey and everyone else in this building were sworn to secrecy. Word of this would spread.

Kyung looked between Snoke and Luke and seemed to regard both of them with the same amount of disdain reserved for neighborhood watches and moldy bread.

"Grand Master Alistair Snoke, Grand Master Luke Skywalker" Kyung announced, and Rey could hear the official inflection in his voice, "you've both just now engaged in an unsanctioned, illegal, non-sparring fist fight, in full view of several witnesses-"

"Oh, holy shit," Phasma breathed, so quietly Rey barely heard her.

Ben tensed next to her, gripping her hand, and she met his wide eyes. It seemed most of her friends had come to the same conclusion she had.

"-and you have broken almost a dozen Taekwondo Federation rules-"

Snoke looked faint, and interrupted with a claim of, "It's not what it looks like." With a quick glare over to the little audience, he said, "They can tell you, we're demonstrating-"

"Don't even bother," Luke laughed. He glanced toward where they all stood and asked, "Did it work?"

_Huh?_

She looked down the line of her friends curiously, wondering if he was talking to them, and she stopped when she saw the slight knowing smile on Rose's face. The girl was looking at her phone, which she'd retrieved from the black bag while everyone was talking. "Yes, sir," she nodded. "We've been live-streaming since before Master Snoke arrived. The stream picked up a few thousand hits and I sent the link to all those emails you gave me."

"Perfect," Luke grinned. "Say goodbye to that Black Belt, Snoke. There's no talking you're way out of this one."

"Livestream?" Finn turned to Rose, with Hux right beside them. "Is that why you got here so early?"

Rose blushed. "Master Luke's set up is still a little new to him. I thought it was only fair that I come by early to help set it up since I was the one he asked for help with in regards to his internet."

That explained the wireless signal that Rey had seen here. She knew for a fact that the dojang had been a dead zone of network activity, but still, the idea of Luke and a  _livestream_  in the same sentence was just...bizarre.

"Where the hell'd you fit the camera though?" Poe asked, looking around as if trying to spot a flare of the lens or a beeping red light.

And at that thought, Rey looked up at the ceiling, at the same spot where Rose had been staring at earlier.

"You put it in the ceiling," Rey said, understanding everything now. "That's how Kyung and Leia knew to come in when they did."

"That and the fact that this building carries sound very well," Kyung agreed, and he almost looked...proud of her? It was hard to tell when the man's emotions ranged from looking bored to looking only slightly more enthused than a starfish. "Rest assured, I heard every word that you exchanged in Master Skywalker's office."

They way he addressed Luke gave Rey some measure of hope.

Snoke was all but on the verge of a full breakdown. "No!" he argued, seemingly with no one. "No no no nononono-"

"I think, Alistair, that the word you're searching is actually 'Yes'." Luke shrugged and spread his arms to the side in a what-can-you-do manner. "It's out of my hands at this point. Every single one of your business partners have just seen you lose and break down, terribly so, in a live internet stream."

"I'll bury you," came the hissing reply. A whitened and ghostly look had taken hold of Snoke and Rey had a feeling it was only pure will holding the man in place. "I'll bury you and your family. I'll file litigation, after civil suit, after prosecution and you won't be able to even  _breathe_  you  _worthless_  conniving cur, with how much debt I will put you under. Your home, your lives, your existences will be  _mine-"_

It was the perfect spot for someone to interrupt. Which was why Rey wasn't surprised when Leia did.

"I would think before you speak, Snoke," she said, voice lofty and regal and surer than the night was dark and the sun was light. "Which reminds me, thank you for introducing me to those wonderful people in the government. The ones you were kind enough to send my way?" A ruthless, pitiless smile graced her face and  _dear lord this woman was scary._ "They didn't find any issues with my finances, but they  _would_ like to speak with you regarding the same kind of tax fraud that you  _oh_  so helpfully accused me of."

The picture came together.

Three pillars of power.

Three coordinated, concentrated attacks launched at the same time from the shadows, while all eyes were on a physical fight that didn't really matter at all. It didn't matter who won the fight, because Master Luke had won the war.

It was, Rey realized, the first time she realized what being a Grand Master was about. Luke had outmaneuvered and outplayed Snoke at every step during the encounter, driven him into a corner, viciously attacking the man's weak spot - his pride and devotion to his former teacher - and turned the calm, collected thing that haunted Rey's nightmares into a gibbering, shaking, wreck of a wretched man.

Luke had been right all along. It  _hadn't_  been a fair fight. He'd beaten Snoke the moment the man had stepped through those doors.

It was, in essence, humbling.

"The building," Snoke tried, one last gasp at salvation. "I still get the building." He spun on Luke, madness and insanity gleaming, and whatever poor tenuous control he'd had was gone. "I'll release the photos if you don't, I'll-"

"And how exactly are you going to try and prove anything with all your former partners doing their best to make sure those nights never technically happened?"

Snoke blanched. He was clenching and unclenching his hands, seeking purchase for some buoy on while lost at sea. The uniform no longer looked fitting on him. Now it just looked sad, ill-fitting; a man reliving a past era which never let him go.

"Besides," Luke shrugged. "It's not  _my_  building anymore. Hasn't been for a few days now."

There was a record scratch in the rhythm of the conversation. Everyone, even Kyung seemed surprised by the statement.

Everyone except Luke...and  _Rose?_

"Huh," Leia mused, eyebrows raised in mild surprise, "You really went through with it?"

"It was the only way to guarantee my focus," Luke explained. He looked sheepish. "I couldn't risk him actually making me sign it somehow, so I just sold it the best person available."

In unison, everyone turned to Ben.

"Kylo Ren!" Snoke advanced on him. He was practically begging now, and all traces of the former thing that lived in his skin were gone. "What do you want? Money? I'll give it to you, I'll trade you my businesses, my students." There was an unhealthy sheen in his face. "Name your price, boy, and I'll-"

"Actually," Rose spoke up, "he's not the owner."

A beady confused stare was all she got. "Who are you?" he asked, once more.

"Someone I could trust," Luke said, coming up and patting her on the shoulder and  _what was even happening anymore_. "We knew you were keeping an eye us, Alistair, but despite everything, you never could see the big picture." He caught Rey's eye and winked. "You always go for the obvious threats. You never keep an ear out for those you deem not a danger, even after you've been burned before."

"She's just a  _girl!_ " Snoke said, appalled. "She has no connection to this place. She has no right to its meaning, its legacy! She's not even a martial artist, goddammit!"

"Hey!" Rose complained. "I've got my orange belt with green stripe, thank you very much."

Silence echoed after her proclamation and Rey had to stifle the nervous, jittery laugh that threatened to escape her. Somewhere among her friends, Hux let out a disbelieving giggle, one that Finn quickly mimicked.

Snoke just stood there mouthing the words " _Orange belt"_ for a few seconds. He quickly gathered himself, but even righteous fury couldn't fuel him for long. He started iterating through the same offer that he'd given Ben earlier. "What do you need, girl? Money? I'll-"

It was Kyung who interrupted and he almost looked at the man with compassion as he spoke. "Need I remind you of the punishment for your transgressions, Alistair?"

And at last, Snoke turned back to Luke, full circle once more. "You! You can still fix this! You can't do this!" Snoke grabbed Luke by the shoulders and tried to shake him. "You wouldn't. You'll be stripped or your belts and titles too! You'll lose everything!"

Luke shrugged the man's hold on him easily. He regarded him coolly, before jerking a thumb at Ben and Rey, who'd gravitated closer to each other in the throes of this madness.

" _They_  are my everything."

"No." Snoke shook his head, trying to dispel this nightmare of his. "Nobody would give up their life's work for their students."

A content and peaceful smile appeared in Luke's face. "Try me. Compared to them, this belt-" he held out his aged, and worn black belt denoting him as a Grand Master, "-is just a rag."

Horror like nothing else drained the rest of the color from Snoke's face. "You're a fool. You'll...you'll go to jail! Your life's work!"

"You're the only fool here." Then, for possibly the last time ever, Luke adopted his instructor's voice and every muscle and nerve in her body came alive in that instant. "I think you missed an important lesson in your training, Snoke, and I feel sorry for you. My father failed you. He never taught you that a Dojang is more than the training center in which we gather."

Luke made a wide sweeping motion addressing the entire building. "This building means nothing to me, but this Dojang is my  _home._ These students that you call fools are my  _family_." Here his voice hardened and Rey's heart beat in tune with the cadence of his speech, etching it into her soul with every word.

"If you think I won't sacrifice everything I have and everything I am - if you think I wouldn't be willing to lay down my life for them..." He shook his head and chuckled, "Well, then you know nothing, and you will never beat me."

A cough drew everyone's attention back to Kyung. He looked distinctly uncomfortable with what else he was about to say

"Master Skywalker, with everything that I've seen here, with all the evidence that is currently painting a very damning portrait of Alistair...I think that I will have to re-evaluate my previous verdict of you. None of this is formal just yet, I still have to speak with the Federation but…"

Rey couldn't stop the ear-splitting grin on her face. "Master Luke, that means you can stay!"

Luke, for his part, seemed fairly stunned with this sudden turnabout of fortune.

Her grin dimmed, seeing Luke's reaction. "Master Luke?"

He turned around, and looked at each of them. Every student, friend, and family member. He looked them in the eyes and one last piece of the puzzle fell into place. When he got to Rey, Luke winked.

"I can stay huh?" he said, as if seriously considering it. "Do you hear that, Alistair? I still get to be a black belt!"

It was too much. The final straw in what was proving to be a horrific, terrible trauma fueled hallucination for the normally collected (former) Grand Master. With a terrible shout that was half battlecry and half-wail, Snoke charged at Luke Skywalker, all form and function tossed to the winds as the man who'd reduced so many others to the base primal instincts fell into that same pit he'd made them dig.

Rey tried to raise a voice in warning, but Luke was already there, already waiting.

A face-level reverse punch  _whammed_  into Snoke and she could practically see the physics play out in slow-motion. Luke hadn't put anything approaching his full strength into that punch, but he didn't need to. A sickeningly familiar sound broke through her ears and a small spatter of blood started trickling down Luke's fist as knuckles met cartilage and Snoke's once broken nose got another new makeover.

Snoke crumpled from the blow. He clutched his face and began moaning.

"How about now, Shin?" Luke asked Kyung, waving his weapon of choice like it was a trophy. "Do I still get to be a Master?"

Kyung looked absolutely appalled. "You- you most certainly do not!" he shouted, before realizing he was expressing too much emotion. "I can see you've made your decision...Luke."

Another moan from Snoke from the floor.

Luke's voice was deliberately and annoyingly peppy. "Enjoy your retirement, Alistair. I know I will."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next, Epilogue: Chapters 55-60: You may remember that, as a Christmas present one year, Rey gave Luke a set of essays...one on each of the five tenets, and an extra one on family. As such, the titles of our epilogue chapters are listed below, and since they are a set, we’ll give you all the “nexts”, all at once:
> 
> CH 55: Courtesy: A passing of the torch.  
> CH 56: Integrity: An echoed question.  
> CH 57: Perseverance: An old lesson renewed.  
> CH 58: Self-Control: A bit of fatherly advice.  
> CH 59: Indomitable Spirit: A namesake.  
> CH 60: Family: A family.
> 
> Onfire: Aaaaaaaand we’re done with the main story. Next up are the epilogue chapters. Hopefully Snoke’s comeuppance was appropriate for the crimes he’s committed. One major theme we wanted to address was the idea of not letting your past define you. Accept it, understand it, and maybe hopefully embrace it, but don’t let it hold you down like it did Snoke. Like it did so many of our characters until they started working on it together.
> 
> Another funny thing that I hope was a nice subversion from expectations of a martial arts story, is how most of the crux of this story actually doesn’t progress because of physical fighting or hurting people. In Act 1 we have Rey learning to accept help after exhausting herself physically trying to fight an unwinnable fight. In Act 2 we had Ben be brought back not by violence, but by love. In Act 3, we see the kind of self-sacrifice a person who loves is willing to strive for, and the orchestration of Snoke’s downfall all takes place outside their “fight”. Physical fighting is very rarely the ideal answer, and I hope those who read this got that from our story.
> 
> _That’s how we’re going to win. Not fighting what we hate, but by saving what we love._
> 
> Attack: So, did anyone catch the Gray Jedi references? ALSO. Kudos to Reylocalligraphy to be the first one to (possibly accidentally) call the ending. In your comment on CH 30, you put “SNOKE V. LUKE”...so, congrats! 
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)
> 
> [ Onfire's Twitter](https://twitter.com/thebuildingsno1)


	55. Courtesy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As we said previously, we plan to post these epilogue chapters daily. The masterpost to all fanart, moodboards, and playlists is [here.](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/180890971987/beautiful-calligraphy-courtesy-of)
> 
> You may have noticed, this is now part of a series. After the epilogue, we'll be going back to fill in some things with short stories. Most will be one-shots, but we've had requests to write certain scenes from other POVs, and there were some scenes we just couldn't fit in, so they'll be posting to the series as short stories.

"These walls are covered in pictures, but have you ever stopped to think about that? I know you haven't really been to many others, but most Dojangs decorate with trophies or inspirational posters - not the tacky kind - or maybe just with a photo from each promotion. Most don't cover their walls in family photos. Here, like this one." He stopped in front of a large frame which held a yellowing photo of a large group of people. It hung at chest height just outside the office, and was easily one the larger ones on display.

"This one was taken the day we started running the Dojang. It was..." He sighed, the frayed edges of memories hooking into him. "Oh, kid. It was so..."

-*-

" _You belong among the wildflowers,_  
_You belong in a boat out at sea,_  
_Sail away, kill off the hours,_  
_You belong somewhere you feel free."_

(Wildflowers, Tom Petty)

-*-

Rey knew she'd been in the office only a week and a half prior, but it was like the building itself had been holding its breath for months and only just now was able to breathe in fresher, newer air. Most of Luke's personal effects in the office were gone.

The only thing left was a small cardboard box on the now neat and tidy desk.

She looked around at the room as if in a dream. The pictures had been taken down, and someone had taken a duster to the walls and surfaces because the thin layer of grime that had been building up in places was now all gone.

Ben stood with Luke as the latter held up an old framed photo, smiling fondly. Luke was chatting his ear off regarding the people in the photo, reminiscing about times long past and dreams long realized. Ben, for his part, was focused and listening intently.

None of them wore their dobok.

Ben and Rey didn't because it didn't seem appropriate, not when they wanted to be family for this, instead of Master Luke's - well, just  _Luke_  at this point - students.

Luke didn't wear his dobok because he couldn't. Not anymore. It wasn't allowed. The call from the Federation had come just that morning, and with that, it was the end of Master Skywalker's tumultuous, yet illustrious career in teaching kids and adults, smart and stupid, in how to be better.

It almost didn't seem real. It didn't seem possible.

"I heard from mom," Ben said, interrupting Luke's latest tangent. His dark eyes bore into Luke's own blue. "She said things are still progressing at a snail's pace but Snoke's being cooperative with the investigation."

Luke nodded, an almost imperceptible glint of satisfaction in his eyes. "I thought he would be."

Rey recalled the last she'd seen of the man. She couldn't bring herself to call him a monster anymore. He was broken and defeated in every way that mattered, blood streaming down his face. One of his accompanying men had helped the limp man to his feet and driven him to the hospital. No words had been exchanged after Luke's last damning punch, and they had all watched him and his lackeys drag themselves out the door.

They'd gotten word later that night from Leia that Snoke had been arrested after he'd been discharged from the hospital.

Apparently, even Snoke's associates had wanted to wash their hands of him. It was, per Leia, a peace offering and assurance from those associates, showing that that they weren't interested in messing with the rest of them.

The news that Snoke was cooperating was of no surprise to Rey, even if she hadn't heard the exact details of his fate.

Luke turned to his box and started gently making room for the picture he held. A quick peek inside showed other frames lined up neatly and an old worn trophy that'd had its gold paint chipped at some point. A few knick-knacks, like a stress ball that Luke had taken to using, and a set of pens with his name engraved on them.

It seemed like such a small vestige for the kind of life Luke had led within those walls.

"You don't have to move out, you know," Ben spoke up again, drawing Luke and Rey's attention. He wore a thin dark sweater and jeans with sneakers, and he certainly didn't look like a man becoming an official co-Master of a Taekwondo Dojang with a long history. More like a boy trying to talk to his father about something interminably difficult. "Just because the building's in my name now doesn't mean you need to leave."

The deed had been transferred with little fanfare to Ben, draining Rose's net worth appropriately so. Luckily as part of the transactional deal, Leia had offered to help with setting up a payment plan on everyone's behalf to deal with any inheritance taxes with her recently liberated funds.

Rose had still insisted on hanging a group picture of them all, from her to Lando and all the way around back to Luke in the office, and had made keeping it there the only condition to her selling the Dojang to Ben.

"He's right," Rey agreed, stepping next to Ben. She ran a hand through her hair before she stopped and realized what she was doing. It was  _weird_  not having it tied up while in the dojang. She turned to Luke and said, "I know it probably wouldn't look good to the Federation if you stayed living so close but-"

Luke held his hands up. He seemed amused, if his expression was anything to go by. Amused and probably a little exasperated.

"What makes you think I  _want_  to stay here?" he asked wryly.

That drew them short and both Ben and Rey shared a look.

Shaking his head, Luke gestured to the chairs opposite the table. "Here, why don't you kids take a seat."

They did so, and even then, in a position so familiar she could practically feel every past instance of this same setup - her and Ben on one side, Luke behind the desk - the note of finality had already been played and now she was just living in its echoes.

"First things first," Luke announced, leaning forward, "I need to tell you kids something. If there's one thing I've learned in all my years teaching Taekwondo, helping kids and adults learn when  _not_  to punch something it's this..." He let the anticipation build for a second and then, just when Rey was going to ask him when he was going to stop being a kook, he said, with the straightest face ever, "You two are the biggest troublemakers I ever had to deal with."

Both Ben and Rey startled at that, and Rey felt the moment of seriousness dissolve when Luke once again broke out into contextually inappropriate laughter. "What? You thought I had some great piece of wisdom to dispense?" He closed his eyes and the chuckling continued. "Sorry, kids, I already taught my last lesson. You two will just have to figure things out on your own now."

Ben's stare was flat. "Been holding on to that long, have you?"

"Since the day I came home to find that some cheeky, long-haired teenager ate through all my ice cream and put back an empty container."

"You were literally only having a spoonful a day! Who  _does_  that?" Ben complained, and then, realizing he was technically in the presence of his girlfriend and acting very uncool, quieted and blushed. "Uh, I mean...sorry."

"Don't be. You were good practice for when  _this_ one came along later," he hooked a thumb in Rey's direction and she stared at him, still a little unused to this freely joking Luke that seemed to be the new norm.

Seeing her inquisitive stare, Luke grinned and shrugged and the motion looked so freeing and liberating Rey had to stop herself from closing her eyes and biting her lip because dammit,  _he looked so happy,_ but she still didn't want him to leave. Maybe it was selfish of her.

How long had he been looking forward to this? A year, two years, maybe more? How much had he been pushing through just for a chance for someone he approved of to inherit the gym?

"But no, really, I don't want to stay here," Luke grabbed one of the pens from the box and started turning it over between two fingers. "Beyond the fact that it might cause you kids some trouble when you reopen-"

Due to the ridiculous amount of paperwork involved and the mess surrounding the entire transfer of deeds, including the business and home, classes had been temporarily suspended, at least until Ben and Phasma got their feet under them again. It was a good thing, because it would finally give them the chance to renovate some of the more antiquated or broken parts of the building.

"-I'm also done with this chapter of my life." He grabbed the pen with one hand, and started waving it around in the air, a haphazard conductor for an invisible orchestra. "I figure I've spent so much of my life simply stuck in one spot, it's about time I practice what I preach and actually go see the world. Expand my horizons a little bit more." Something a little mischievous entered his tone, or maybe it was a lot mischievous - Rey didn't even know anymore - as he then said, "Did you know cruise trips are pretty cheap in the winter? Go figure."

Ben's look was skeptical. "Just you?"

"Uh, no."

Something very much like a blush appeared on Luke's place and took Rey a moment to process it because it actually  _was_  a blush. "Amilyn's joining me. It was her idea actually. Apparently she's been looking to do the same and has been wanting to invite me. I just hadn't the time or opportunity prior to now."

"And how're things going with her?" Ben asked, smirking. "She still not smarten up and kick you to the curb?"

Luke snorted. "She has the patience of a saint, especially after dealing with you." Luke exchanged conspiratorial wink with Rey. "She used to babysit this punk growing up, so I have access to  _all_  the embarrassing stories that she never told anyone."

Despite her own conflict, Rey found herself grinning back. "You'll have to tell me about them when we see you next. You still coming to Christmas?"

"And miss out on sharing all the embarrassing stories I have about you and Ben with everyone now that I don't have to worry about acting responsibly?" Luke's grinned would have burned her retinas had it shone any greater. "Kid, you're going to wish I didn't come by the time I'm done."

She looked him in the eyes, fully serious, and said, "Never."

That stoppered his gaiety, and his shaggy salt and pepper hair, all traces of blond forever gone, shook over his face. He'd shaved since last week, trimmed his beard down from the start of its wizardly appearance, and in the same step shaved away years of stress and exhaustion. He still had the crow's feet and the worry wrinkles born in her time under his tutelage, but they seemed to weigh less now and instead were buoyed by the simple joy of freedom exuding from his person.

There was a thump outside in the main hall, a small patter of feet on wood, and the faint almost surely trick-of-her-mind sound of the door jingling open. She frowned for a moment before banishing those thoughts. The only person other than the three of them who had a key was Phasma and she'd said that she was dealing with something urgent regarding her family that day.

Though, now that she was fully conscious of herself and everything around her and not still reeling from last week, Rey realized that something was off with that statement. Phasma didn't talk with her family, as far as Rey knew.

"I-" Ben started and failed, and then tried again. "How can I ever thank you, sir?"

Luke leaned back in his chair and turned it side to side. It was a juvenile motion, or maybe the simple reflex of a man who didn't have to hold himself back so much anymore. "How about doing what you want with your life?"

"Sir?"

"You can stop calling me  _sir,_  too," Luke pointed out. "I'm not your Master anymore. That's still being decided by the Federation."

Ah right. Usually there was a chain or connection between masters and students who were still actively practicing. With both of Ben's teachers getting stripped of their belts, and all the controversy that had come from it, there was still some debate as to who would be Ben's contact within the Federation should there ever come a need for it, or should he ever be ready to promote again.

But Ben didn't seem to agree with what Luke had said. He crossed his arms, stuck his chin out belligerently and, dare she say, defiantly, and his eyes softened as he stared at his uncle.

"You are always going to be Grand Master Luke to us, sir."

For the first time since they'd stepped into the room, Luke seemed struck speechless. His mouth was open, but he quickly closed it and shook his head, as if trying to clear it. When he stilled there was a fine glassy sheen to his eyes that neither Rey nor Ben pointed out, mostly because the two of them had the same.

"The least you should is stop calling me 'sir', kid," Luke muttered, a tad hoarse, but looking inordinately pleased nonetheless. "You're going to get a lot of people calling you that, and take it from me, you don't want to be looking over your shoulder for me everytime they do. You're the teacher now." A short teasing chuckle. "And God help you."

"Teaching Taekwondo's all I've ever wanted to do, Uncle Luke," Ben said seriously. "I just wish I'd more time with you before I had to start."

"I'm not exactly dying, you know," Luke said dryly. "You still have my phone number, I'm still going to see you every week, I'm not even moving that far away." Luke rolled his eyes. "Believe me, Ben, you're going to get sick of seeing me long before you start missing me. Both of you will."

"I highly doubt that," Rey said, before she too, rolled her eyes.

"Hah, I'll make you regret those words." He shifted his position on the seat, adjusting it carefully as he leaned forward and propped his elbows on the desk. "Are you sure you want this place though? It was always my plan to pass it down to you, Ben, but not out of some misguided sense of trying to make you follow in my footsteps." He drummed his fingers against the surface of the desk. "Take it from me, kids, teaching is hard. There are going to be days when you'll want nothing more to crack open a stiff one if not a few heads, and those days are going to happen a lot more frequently than you might think." Luke's voice was quiet as he asked, "You know I don't want you to feel like I'm making you do this, right? I only want you happy."

"I know," Ben nodded, and a serene, peaceful and accepting smile was all else he needed to say.

A watery chuckle was Luke's response. "You're crazier than I ever was, that's for sure."

Rey could feel the conversation starting to draw to a close, and she decided then and there that it was high time she exercise some of that same Taekwondo courage she'd once struggled to hold when confronted with real, profound emotion like this. She took note of every nervous thought in her head and told them to all fuck off, because she had something that needed saying. Reaching across the desk, she grabbed Luke's hand, weathered, tired, strong, and protective.

"I-" she swallowed her tears because now was  _not_  the time, not when Luke looked so happy he could walk the skies just like his namesake. "You told me that you think of me as family. As- as- a daughter." Her cheeks were flaming and yet she reached into the strength she knew she had, drew it from Ben beside her and Luke right before her. "I just wanted to say...I think you're a pretty great dad. Best I could have, I think."

The stupid, silly grin that took over the man's face almost disguised the tear that finally escaped one of his eyes, but just that look - that look of utter surprise mixed with delight made Rey's entire month. It didn't matter that she'd gotten her second dan not even a few weeks earlier -  _this_  was her greatest accomplishment.

"You're a bit of a jerk," she continued softly. Her heart beat  _hard_  in her chest as she admitted to something she'd always sort of thought, but never explicitly acknowledged until recently and had very rarely considered verbalizing. "You've got the goofiest sense of fashion I've ever seen-" case in point, the atrocious maroon and green sweater he now wore, a Christmas monstrosity, "-and you definitely sound like a talking fortune cookie sometimes, but-" She smiled through the wrench in her chest, and she could feel Ben grasp her hand, lending even more of his strength, "But I don't think I could have asked for a better family."

She wiped her face in her shoulder and noticed her throat was starting to clutch. "So...thank you. For not giving up on me. For sticking it out with this nobody girl who caused you so many problems."

Luke placed his own hand on hers and squeezed. "You've never been nobody, Rey," he said softly. "And thank you for sticking it out with this old coot who gave you so many headaches."

Ben's hands joined theirs and they stayed like that for forever and for a time that passed way too quickly, all at the same time. When they each separated, more than one sniffle could be heard.

"You kids," Luke grouched without any heat, "I'm just leaving the building. I'm not leaving forever. Idiots."

And neither of them said anything to that that would say otherwise, because they all knew the truth. Regardless of his words, this was the end of something precious.

A few minutes passed, spotted with random sounds that had Rey wondering what was going on with the building, before a beep on Luke's phone grabbed his attention. After reading the text message, Luke sighed, and stood up. "That's Amilyn," he said, "she just pulled up outside with the car."

Amilyn had been helping Luke move his things out throughout the entire grace period before receiving official confirmation. She'd contracted some folks to help, but mostly she'd been overseeing all of it, since it was her place that Luke was moving in to.

"I should get going but first, I need to give you my copy of the keys." Luke started reaching into his back pocket, digging deep into his jeans.

"Wait, Luke you don't have to-"

"You either take the keys or I toss them down a grate, Ben," Luke said simply. "I've spent enough of my life here. Believe me, I won't need any more souvenirs."

Sighing in resignation, Ben stood and held his hand palm up for Luke to drop the keys in, only for Luke to have other ideas.

"Think fast," Luke said, tossing the keys underhand with way too much force. Ben jolted and juked, trying to snatch them, but he'd been unprepared and the keys went sailing by. "Aw, too slow Ben."

He just stared at his uncle for a second before he asked bluntly, "I'm going to hate this version of you, aren't I?"

"Cheeky brat," was all Luke had to say, and his beaming smile was a bit too stretched to be entirely devoid of devilry.

Snorting, Rey stood and turned her back to them to pick up the keys. They hadn't fallen far, only ending up under the third chair Luke kept in the office for the really cramped meetings. While she was bending down to get it she heard another sound of something being tossed, this time accompanied with the corresponding catch. She rose, keys in hand, only to see Ben turn to face with too much adroitness to be anything innocent, stuffing what looked like a small black ovalish-box she couldn't recognize behind his back.

Ben glared at Luke. "Really? Couldn't have picked a better time for that?"

"Obviously, I'm not saying  _now_ ," Luke snarked. "It's just an...eventuality. I think we both know you'll use it, probably sooner, rather than later."

Rey narrowed her eyes at the men, wondering why they'd begun speaking so vaguely, but shrugged it off as some sort of odd Skywalker thing. Or maybe a Taekwondo Master thing.

The flare of crimson in Ben's cheeks was positively supernova in intensity, and the look he was spearing Luke with was mutinous, but even amongst that concert of expression he still had time to look contrite and then say, "Yeah. Uhm...that's true. Thank you. You're...okay with that?"

Luke laughed. "Of course I am. And you're welcome." Without further ado he picked up the box by the handles. "Do whatever you want with the keys. I definitely won't need them where I'm going."

Immediately, Ben's eyes flickered over to her, and he asked perhaps a bit shyly, "Hey, do you still have that emergency key we gave you, sweetheart?"

Curious, but wondering where he was going with his question, she dug out her own copy from her pocket. She never kept it far from her. A little piece of home always with her, wherever she went.

"Good."

She watched curiously as he worked his lips together and took a deep breath. The next sentence was almost anti-climactic with how much Ben seemed to need to psych himself up for it.

"Is there any chance you'd want to move in?" His eyes met hers again, and he added, "With me, I mean."

Contrary to Ben, she didn't even have to think or work herself up to give her reply.

"Of course I would," she breathed.

"Good, good." Ben blushed a little bit further, and he almost stammered his last sentence. "That's good."

And wasn't that a sight that would never fail to make her melt? Her mountain of a boyfriend  _blushing_  was always going to be a weakness, and whereas the Rey of old would have balked at that, before friendship and heartbreak and love and family had come and ruined her views of the world, the her of now could only coo at the sight.

She was about to lean up on her toes for a kiss when Luke cleared his throat, reminding them that he was there. "I'm going to leave now, before you two forget I'm here and do things you really shouldn't in front of me.  _Again_."

"Here, let me get the door," Ben said, a sarcastic lilt to his tone, even if the goofy grin spreading across his face belied his true mood. "Have to make sure it hits you on the way out."

"Such a Solo," Luke shook his head, and whereas that statement would have garnered some kind of heated or rebuttal earlier, now Ben seemed to stand straighter, and scoff.

Luke came around, carefully holding the box so as to not disturb the frames or break any glass, and Ben really did open the door for him.

Rey was right behind them, so all she heard was them letting out two simultaneous gasps. She peered around Ben, curious as to what it was, before she too felt her jaw drop.

People.

Dozens of - no, possibly a hundred or more - people were milling about in the building. They gathered in the main area of the dojang, stepping on the wooden floor, crowding the few bottlenecks that there were in the audience, the entrance and the small half wall separating the entrance from the main area.

They stood, talking amongst each other, voices low and friendly in the normally solemn setting of the dojang. Occasionally there was a laugh that would quickly get swallowed by the throng of people around them, but everywhere Rey looked she saw brilliant happy faces.

There were parents with children there. One or two still had them on their shoulders, but the most of them were now approaching teenage years for the most part. Older men and women seemed to cloister around the younger ones, talking amicably with others not their contemporaries and seeming to rib each other over small things.

Business suits intermixed equally with simple leggings and casual wear, sneakers with dress shoes, slick professionally coiffed hair in a crowd alongside those who looked like they'd just gotten out of bed. They talked and they chatted and everyone seemed ignorant of Rey, Ben, and Luke looking in on this environ through the fish eye lens of reality.

"How..." Luke whispered. "What...Who..."

His voice came out trembling and raw and Rey came up beside him and placed her hand on his shoulder, steadying the man.

It was then, that Rey caught eye of a specific person. Someone she hadn't ever expected to see.

"Jess!" she said, shocked and catching the attention of the girl.

"Heya Rey," said the girl who'd influenced so much of Rey's own Taekwondo career. She'd let her hair grow, and wore an expensive looking coat over her sleek, grey outfit. She looked like she'd just stepped out of a fashion magazine as one of their designers. Despite their clear differences and how they'd last parted, Jess smiled, and Rey was struck by just how much a person could change and yet  _not_. "Heard about the second dan. Congratulations!"

She really meant it, too, Rey's addled mind pointed out. Jess had never been shy about disguising her dislike of certain things and unless her time in Europe had changed her entire personality and speech, she certainly did seem happy to see her.

"Thanks," Rey answered automatically, with a soft smile.

She started looking around, understanding dawning with each passing second as somewhat familiar faces started popping out to her amongst the crowd. People who she'd seen, but never developed close friendships with, people who'd she'd never met, but who looked as at home in the dojang as any of her friends did.

They were all so different, but Rey figured it out, and she realized they all had one very meaningful thing in common.

"Who did this?" she asked Ben. Luke had gone catatonic since stepping out and slowly, one by one, people were coming to realize just who was standing there, staring at all of them.

Slowly, whatever chatter that there'd been died down, the news of Luke's emergence from the office reaching even the back of the room.

From the forest of people emerged two familiar faces.

"Poe? Phasma?" Luke whispered their names. His grip on his box was bone white, a vice as he held on to his last remaining tethers. "What is going on here?"

Poe, dressed in a casual tee in the middle of December, shrugged and smiled as if he weren't partially responsible for all of it. "We were thinking, Master Luke, that after everything that's happened, after everything that you've done for us...well, it didn't sit right, just leaving things be."

"Not without showing our appreciation for you first," Phasma continued for him. She wore the same gray hoodie she'd been in when they met, and yet Rey almost couldn't recognize the same woman who'd once came up to her in a tournament to needle and antagonize her into proving her Taekwondo knowhow. "Now without showing you how much you've done."

"What about that stuff with your family?" Luke asked. He had to put the box down, whether from weight or simply something else, Rey couldn't tell.

The blonde woman looked a bit sheepish. "I wasn't lying, sir. Not really."

"Oh."

"She's a regular softie." Poe nudged her ribs with his elbow, drawing a much more characteristic swipe and growl from the much taller woman. He practically skipped away, laughing, before turning to Luke once more. "We know things haven't always been good around here for you but you've really helped us, and a lot of others too." He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. "So, Phasma found their old records in your office and started making some calls and well, here we are."

"Calls, my ass," Jess laughed. She flipped her hair as she straightened and adjusted her unruffled skirt. "You basically cyber-stalked us and convinced us to come. You were so prepared for us to disagree you kept talking past me even after I already said I'd come."

"She's exaggerating!" Poe said, quick to explain. He actually looked a little worried about Luke's reaction, and seeing the older man not react seemed to spur his franticness. "As soon as people heard, most of them agreed right away. I mean, some people just couldn't make it or lived too far, but..." he took a breath and gestured to the crowd behind them, "Well, you get the idea. Originally we thought people would just make videos or something we could put together, but they all wanted to come and be here in person."

At last, Luke seemed to find his voice again. "You didn't have to do this," he rasped, but Rey could see the soft tremulous smile on his face as his gaze roved over the crowd that'd gathered. "Really, I know everyone has busy lives to get to and-"

"Sir," Jess interrupted, "What part of this makes you think we don't  _want_  to do this?"

Luke didn't respond, a half-disbelieving laugh escaping him.

"We should probably get started, by the way," Phasma noted.

Luke blinked blearily and stared at her, shocked. "There's  _more_?" he asked.

Poe's grin was absolutely blinding. "You didn't think we'd just stop it here, did you Master Luke?"

The mention of his former title seemed to lasso Luke a little bit further back to reality. "You shouldn't call me that, kid. Not anymore."

Poe traded a look with Ben and the two of them exchanged a silent conversation where the latter informed the former that he'd already had this conversation.

"No offense,  _sir,"_  Poe said, a glint of something obstreperous giving away basically his entire personality, "but you can't tell me what to do anymore."

A huff of rueful laughter came from Luke. "You're right about that." He looked around at all of them, and he looked resigned to this great kindness, a stubborn old man finally giving in to the kids who'd learned all their obstinacy from. "All right, let's get on with it then. What's the big surprise?"

Victory shined through Phasma's shark-like grin, and Rey could tell that she'd been waiting for just this moment.

"Everybody!" Phasma called out, a bellow commanding attention with a single impressive breath. "Ready? Just like we told you!"

An invisible, silent throng of energy emerged from the crowd, and suddenly pressure all too familiar and yet different to Rey was upon her. She watched the two parents with kids on their shoulders let them down to stand.

It reminded her of being in the fight club, except without the poorly hidden tinge of bloodlust and subtle undercurrent of hate tainting every breath. Instead, in that void was something brighter. Something that was scary, but not in the bad way.

It pulsed and beat within her bones like the ocean waves. It crashed and roved through her veins like a tropical storm in the Caribbean. It was natural and beautiful and powerful and after a brief second Rey surrendered herself to the sensation. The hairs on the back of her neck rose and she found herself unconsciously standing up a little straighter.

"Everybody..." There was a hurricane's patient breath and then Phasma practically exploded as she said, " _Chiryat!"_

On cue everyone there straightened, even Ben and Rey who hadn't been told anything about this. Rey saw the madwoman's grin on Phasma's face and she suddenly understood.

Luke, apparently, had come to the same conclusions. "Oh," he said. Then, because was a mule-headed recalcitrant fool who constantly had to be fought to let anything nice happen to him, he said, "Really, you guys don't have to do this. I'm not your Master any more."

There was a beat of silence as Luke's voice carried throughout the dojang. No one changed their expression. It was Ben who broke the ceasefire of noise

"I'm sorry Uncle Luke," Ben said, sounding anything but, "but I'm pretty sure we've all just experienced sudden and temporary deafness and didn't hear anything you said in the past ten seconds. Would you care to repeat that?"

A titter tore through the crowd and Rey saw Luke run the calculations before he put on a much maligned expression of resignation that didn't look that maligned at all. In fact, he looked a little eager.

Seeing the man  _finally_  take a step back, it was Phasma who stepped forward first. She walked until she was a little bit in front of the crowd, and then about-faced smartly, maintaining a firm resolute stare ahead the entire time. She closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them Rey saw the ocean's worth of unshed tears. She took a deep, troubling breath and her resolve seemed to return.

Phasma looked at Luke straight in the eye, and said firmly, "Gwendoline Phasma, Black Belt! Fourth Dan!"

She announced loudly, and to the world. Wild, proud, and with that same dare-to-fuck-with-her attitude that she had in everything she cared about. It was a proclamation, an announcement, and a farewell all in one.

Luke swallowed thickly.

Poe stepped up beside her. His jaw looked tense, his face a shade of red that Rey could tell meant he was holding on to his composure through pure force of will himself. "Poe Dameron, Black Belt! Third Dan!"

Sky-blue eyes took in the sight, but didn't blink. Luke's mouth had opened silently in shock as he realized what was going on, but the crowd was gaining momentum.

Jess nodded seriously from where she stood. "Jessika Pava, Black Belt! First Dan!"

Tallie stepped forward from where he'd been congregating. "Tallison Lintra, Green Belt!"

"Callum McAir! Red Belt!"

"Rose Tico!" shouted a voice way in the back, "Orange Belt, Green Stripe!"

One by one, names, voice, ranks, souls filled the air of the dojang. As more and more spoke they stopped coming in sequence, but that didn't stop anyone. Old voices, young voices, yells and callouts and titles and so many things, so many people that it beggared thought how it was even possible to have so many people so interconnected, intertwined together like this.

So many people brought together by a single man.

The pressure rose and rose, and Rey found herself laughing in accordance because underneath the whole thing, hidden within the notes of the song being played was the unmistakable sound of hope.

It was a tsunami of emotion and even if it wasn't strictly in tune with the intended tone, she could see Luke listen and catch every single one of those names, the people who'd left, the people who'd stayed, the ones who'd been changed by Taekwondo and the ones for whom it hadn't changed much at all. A fraction of the people he'd met in his lifetime, no doubt, but Luke stood and listened.

He drank it all in with the hungry expression of a man who would remember each of their names, who would always carry them in his heart in some way, and Rey thanked these people, these strangers, for coming to her family.

In the end, it was only Ben and Rey left. Without even looking to each other they both strode forward and lined up alongside the others.

"Rey Kenobi," she announced to the now mostly quiet dojang, "Black Belt, Second Dan!"

"Ben Solo, Black Belt! Fourth Dan!" A moment of pause and then he added, "And proud to be your student, sir."

Luke heaved a sigh, and he nodded.

"Thank you sir, for everything you've done for us," Phasma took lead. "We know it isn't much but...thank you."

Poe spoke up again, his unshed tears evident as he said, a bit shakily, "Your name is on all our certificates. Your voice is the one we all hear - the one that reminds us how to be good people, and good Taekwondoians. So, Master or not, you'll always be Master Luke to us."

Once again Luke nodded, sniffling, and Rey wondered if he could even think clearly, or if he was just focusing on holding it together.

Phasma turned back to the crowd, once again assuming her drill-sergeant persona. "Everybody ready? One last time! Make it count!" She looked back to the front and shouted, "For all the things you've ever taught us!"

"For all the good you brought to our lives!" Poe picked up.

"For all the hope you've ever given us!"

"Grand Master Luke Skywalker-"

As one, everyone bowed.

" _Thank you."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next, Epilogue: You may remember that, as a Christmas present one year, Rey gave Luke a set of essays...one on each of the five tenets, and an extra one on family. As such, the titles of our epilogue chapters are listed below.
> 
> CH 56: Integrity: An echoed question.  
> CH 57: Perseverance: An old lesson renewed.  
> CH 58: Self-Control: A bit of fatherly advice.  
> CH 59: Indomitable Spirit: A namesake.  
> CH 60: Family: A family.
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Onfire's Twitter](https://twitter.com/thebuildingsno1)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	56. Integrity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As we said previously, we plan to post these epilogue chapters daily. The masterpost to all fanart, moodboards, and playlists is [here.](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/180929372137/beautiful-calligraphy-courtesy-of)
> 
> You may have noticed, this is now part of a series. After the epilogue, we'll be going back to fill in some things with short stories. Most will be one-shots, but we've had requests to write certain scenes from other POVs, and there were some scenes we just couldn't fit in, so they'll be posting to the series as short stories.

"...and this one was taken by Maz. I didn't even know she was standing there. It was the day I made one of the best decisions of my life and I never would have had the opportunity if I hadn't been a part of this Dojang...and then, here - this one's from a bit later…"

-*-

 _"If you're lost you can look and you will find me,_  
_Time after time;_

 _If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting,_  
_Time after time."_

(Time After Time, Cyndi Lauper)

-*-

"I'd love to stay, Maz, but Ben's probably wondering where I am."

Rey smiled, a bit sadly, back at the woman from where she sat at the counter. They'd closed up the diner nearly an hour earlier and since locking the doors, the two women had been reminiscing. It was just them closing up, just as it had been for a little while since Phasma had been able to go full-time with teaching classes at the Dojang. Things were still a little rough with the amount of students, but they were slowly, but surely increasing in size. There was even more serious talk about having separate classes for certain skill levels to best address everyone's needs.

Now it was dark, and the diner was mostly lit by the street lights outside because neither of them had moved to turn on the diner's interior lights. Maybe because it would be like admitting that late evening had arrived, and with it, the end of Rey's employment there.

She'd never been so nervous for a summer to end, and for a new school year to begin.

"That boy's waited for you his whole life. He can wait ten more minutes. Just stay a bit longer, girlie?" Maz asked.

Rey stood, and walked toward the end of the counter, basking in the low glow of the jukebox, her heart squeezing at the thought of leaving.

So many things had changed, even just in the past few months. Everything from graduating from college to seeing her friends get married, to receiving her first professional job offer (wonderfully, from the same school district she'd gone to high school in), and the only difficult part of any of it was that the job was dependent on her matriculating into a graduate program for school counselor education, and she wouldn't be able to keep her job at the diner.

She'd barely have time to keep up her training at the Dojang, but Phasma had reassured her that they'd work out a reasonable training schedule. Ben could offer some advice outside of the Dojang, but after the scare with the Federation during what felt like a lifetime ago, neither of them wanted to risk anything. Besides, Phasma was scarier and much more amenable to teaching Rey how to break someone's arm.

Some of the changes were amazing, but some were terrifying. Part of her wanted something - just one thing - to hold on to. One thing she knew wouldn't change.

She glanced over at Maz, sighing sadly, and let herself fall into a feeling she could only describe as  _bittersweet_. Of course, she'd still spend plenty of time in the diner - she lived and trained right across from it, after all. Family breakfasts with her and Ben, Luke, Amilyn, Leia, Chewie, and Lando would still happen there (probably weekly, as usual). They'd still meet their friends there, though Poe would be even busier now that he was beginning his first year of residency (he'd had to quit training to keep to his now demanding schedule).

Overall, maybe things wouldn't change much.

Though...Rey was retiring her skates, and for some reason, her stomach still turned a little at that. She'd almost been sick when she'd told Maz she would probably need to give notice.

So much had happened at the diner. So many times she'd never forget.

The first time she'd really been in Ben's arms…

> " _Since when do you work here?" he asked, walking over to where she sat._
> 
> _It was like the world was conspiring against her. Of course Ben had to walk in when she felt like collapsing. Rey moved to stand up, completely forgetting that she had wheels strapped to her feet. She slipped, and flailed for a moment, assuming she was about to fall backward before Ben reached out and caught one of her hands in his, pulling her to him so he could wrap an arm around her waist to help steady her._
> 
> _Whatever opinions Rey had about the skates were washed away by the tidal wave of thoughts that included "oh my" and "this is nice."_
> 
> _Ben chuckled, his voice a powerful tenor that absolutely did not send goosebumps up her arms (it was the A/C. Obviously). He called out to Maz, "Are you sure you want Rey on skates? I think the kid needs some lessons first."_

The first time she'd really talked to Han...

> _"You have breakfast yet?"_
> 
> _"Yes," Rey answered quickly. A low and audible growl came from her stomach. Okay, so she may have skipped her usual toast this morning._
> 
> _"That don't sound like breakfast," Han pointed out, dark eyes glimmering. "That sounds like someone doesn't want to talk to me."_
> 
> _Something about that cocky look in his eyes tweaked her something fierce. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she snapped, and then felt guilty, because this was a customer, and even worse, this was Ben's father. She stood up to leave. Staying there was not going to make the situation better._
> 
> _Han rolled his eyes. "Then why don't you shut up and sit down, firecracker?"_
> 
> _Rey pursed her lips to stop the first thing she wanted to say from coming out of her mouth. Instead, she settled for a brief and waspish, "Don't call me that."_

Or, maybe more importantly, the time Han had given her some much needed life advice…

> " _Y'know, maybe it's a good thing Ben was born a boy. I don't think I could have handled this kind of crap from my own wife, let alone a kid."_
> 
> " _Hey!"_
> 
> " _I mean, no offense," he continued, entirely offensive nonetheless, "but you're so tightly wound I'm surprised you haven't popped a hair bun."_
> 
> " _Why does everyone keep talking about my hair? I like my hair," Rey grumbled, self-consciously reaching for her triple bun._
> 
> " _My point is, kid, you gotta' be young at some point. Even if you have to learn how to be."_

The first time she'd told someone she loved them….

> " _Kid, I hope you know…" something ugly and bitter twisted his face as he turned his gaze down at the table, and then back to her. "I know you and Han had a special connection, and I know I'm not him, but I hope you know you'll always have a home with me."_
> 
> _Rey looked up, and gave Luke a genuine smile. It was probably one of the first genuine smiles she'd worn in months. "I know, Luke. I...I love you too."_
> 
> _And finally, for the first time in too long, Luke's old smile - full of mischief, warmth, and a drop of humor - returned._

The first time she'd broken a man's heart, even though she wanted nothing more than to kiss him…

> " _Rey," he said softly, "Starlight." His lip quivered as he let out a strangled, "Please."_
> 
> _She turned back, and gave him another sad smile before saying quietly, her voice a bit shaky, "I'm sorry. I really am. But Ben Solo's the only man I ever want to kiss, and right now…" she sighed, "right now, I'm not sure you're him."_
> 
> _Taking another step toward the door, she sucked in a breath and added, "If you see him, tell him I still shine for him. Tell him I always will."_

The time they went on their first date, once he'd come back to her….

> _She swallowed hard, and took the risk, stepping forward as she kept her hand out, determined not to let their memory of dancing in the diner be that memory._
> 
> _Ben looked down at her hand, and after a moment, he reached out until their fingers were just barely touching. He let out a low, shaky breath as he stepped closer, fully enveloping her hand in his, and he wrapped an arm around her waist. Rey moved into his arms and leaned against his chest as they swayed to the music._
> 
> _The song she'd picked hadn't been completely thought-out, but as she listened to the lyrics she realized they couldn't have been more appropriate. It seemed Ben thought that way too, because once they'd danced through a couple of verses, he murmured against her forehead, "I like this song a lot more than the last one."_

So many moments. So many memories. But so much was going to  _change._

"Can you put a song on for me, girlie?"

Rey snapped back to the present, planting her hands on the jukebox, a little thing that was so oddly pertinent to so many of her memories and she looked over, surprised to see Maz grinning at her. With a shrug, she asked, "Which one?"

Rather than give her a song title, Maz thought for a moment and then listed off a string of numbers, and Rey pressed them in. After a moment she recognized the rhythm and frowned, staring down at the album cover. She'd worked there for years and she couldn't recall the jukebox ever playing any Cyndi Lauper. "Huh. I- Y'know, Maz, I don't remember this one being on here. This isn't even classic rock. Is it new?"

She looked over at where the woman had been standing, but she was gone.

"Uh...Maz?"

Someone cleared their throat from behind her. Rey yelped, and nearly jumped out of her skin and spun quickly, forgetting she was on her skates. And in the true, graceful fashion of an almost third degree Black Belt, she faltered, and she flailed, and she fell.

Two strong arms shot out to catch her around the waist, and something he'd been holding clattered to the ground, but Rey was too busy reliving a memory to think too much of it. With a slight smirk, Ben stared down at her, shaking his head with amusement.

"Still haven't figured out the skates after all this time, huh, sweetheart?

Rey rolled her eyes at him, lightly smacking his chest while simultaneously admiring how he looked in the dark green sweater she'd gotten him. "Shut up. You scared me - me almost falling has nothing to do with my skating abilities." She smiled at him, sliding her hands up until they were up by his shoulders, running her fingers through the long hair she loved so much, and he leaned down, nuzzling at her cheek before meeting her for a kiss.

It was a bit more tentative than Ben's kisses usually were, and something about how hesitant he was being was curious, but after giving it no more than a passing thought she got lost in him, slotting her lips against his with a soft sigh.

When he pulled back, leaving her with a light kiss to her forehead, Rey asked, "So, what are you doing here? Did you come to see what was taking so long?"

"Not exactly," he murmured, working his lips together. "Dance with me?"

After a moment's consideration, she realized what was off. Ben seemed  _nervous_. It was so odd and so unlike him she'd had a hard time figuring out what it was, but he was nervous. She frowned slightly, but assumed he'd explain it on his own.

Nodding, she let out a soft laugh and said, "I can't promise you won't have to help me not fall. I'm not sure I've ever tried slow dancing in skates."

"That's okay," he smiled, tightening his hold around her, "I've got you."

They swayed for a few moments in each other's arms before Rey decided to break the silence. "I'm still trying to figure out how Cyndi Lauper got on the jukebox. I really don't think she qualifies as classic r-"

Ben broke out into laughter, interrupting her as he blurted out, "Oh, of  _course_  you'd interrupt a proposal to criticize the music. That- that's such a  _Rey_  thing to do."

She was about to roll her eyes again, or maybe curse at him, but then all of the words he'd said hit her and time stopped. All she could hear was the rush of blood that came with each beat of her heart as he stared down at her, smiling fondly, looking at her like she'd hung the moon.

"Interrupt a  _what?_ " she murmured, almost terrified she'd misheard.

His answer was quiet as he whispered, "A proposal."

Suddenly Rey remembered him dropping something, and her gaze flew to the box that had fallen to the floor. Her mouth fell open, almost in slow motion.

"Oh my god."

Grabbing at one of his arms for support, she pulled away slightly to reach down and pick the little item off the floor. It seemed to be antique, a black oval case with a gold clasp keeping it closed, and even as she let Ben wrap his arms around her again she couldn't bring herself to open it.

She could barely bring herself to breathe.

"I had a different plan," he admitted. "Probably a much more romantic one. Poe and Hux helped me put together this whole speech, and I was going to wait until Christmas but Rey, I've been staring at that ring for more than a year and a half since Uncle Luke gave it to me, trying to figure out how to ask, and I was looking at it tonight and I realized I just can't wait any more. I love you too much and every time I refer to you as my  _girlfriend_  it just feels wrong because I want  _so_  much more, and I'm probably completely messing this up, and maybe I'm asking way too early, but-"

"No, not at all," she breathed, interrupting his building rant. "No, Ben, you couldn't possibly mess this up, and it's not too early. Of  _course_  I'll marry you."

His eyes got a bit wide and he sucked in a breath. For some reason the absolute idiot was  _surprised_  by her answer, as if he barely realized she'd spent years being completely in love with him.

Ben recovered quickly with an amused huff. "You know, I haven't even asked yet."

"Then ask me, you idiot," she teased, glee bubbling up in her chest. Tears were pricking at her eyes, and she was probably smiling like a lunatic. With a slight sniffle, she laughed, "It'll give me another chance to say yes."

After a moment he nodded and smiled brilliantly, "Okay then, starlight."  
  
And then, without knowing it, he echoed old words that took her breath away and made more tears well in her eyes.

"How does  _Rey Solo_  sound?"

* * *

As it turned out (and to absolutely nobody's surprise, except maybe Ben's, for some reason),  _Rey Solo_ sounded pretty fantastic.

Wedding planning, though?

Not so much.

They'd agreed to make it a two year engagement, waiting until she was finished with her Master's program to have the wedding, but  _apparently_  wedding planning, when done well, started a year in advance.

At least, that was the case when your future mother-in-law was Leia Organa, the most systematic human being Rey'd ever known, a living force of plans and contingencies bound in human skin with fierce iron will and a heart so wide it would make the Mariana trench look shallow.

Rey loved her. She truly did, but she was also getting ready to tear her own hair out because if she got one more question about fucking  _fonts_ for the invitations she was going to lose her damn mind.

"Sweetheart," Ben murmured, wrapping his arms around her as he hugged her back to his chest, "Want me to handle things for a while? Maybe you can go take a walk? I'm sure Phasma would join you - she's looking a bit frazzled. Some fresh air might be good if you're getting overwhelmed. Maybe grab a bottle of wine from the place around the corner?"

Rey turned around in his arms, leaning back against their kitchen counter, and she sighed.

It wasn't exactly the same kitchen counter Luke had once caught them making out against one Christmas. About a year after they'd moved in, and once all the renovations had been done to the Dojang, they'd turned their attention to the apartment upstairs. They hadn't exactly gutted it, but at some point they'd realized how much space the building hadn't put to good use, and they were able rearrange a wall or two to build in an office within the apartment (Rey had put it to good use since Ben had his own downstairs), and the living room had gotten a tiny expansion.

She bit at her lip, crossing her arms, and glanced over at the dark countertops they'd managed to install with a bit of help from Chewie.

"It's okay," she sighed. "I just- well, I'm glad we're doing this today, and not tomorrow."

Ben huffed, leaning in to kiss her forehead, "Wedding planning on our anniversary? I can think of many things I'd like to do with and  _to_  you tomorrow that would be much more fun than sift through napkin samples that all look identical."

"See, that's what my problem is," she groaned, "None of this matters to me. I don't care if the napkins are neon purple and she orders marigolds!" At Ben's curious look she rolled her eyes and explained, "Apparently flowers have meanings, and those have some sort of association with death."

He snorted, but seemed to notice just how frustrated she was, and he pulled her against his chest, smoothing a hand down her back. "Don't worry, starlight," he crooned. "Want me to send everyone home? I think I know a few ways to help you relax," he said, a bit suggestively, making her blush a little. "Plus, the wedding's not for another year, it's not like we're in a rush. I know my mother's being a little overbearing..."

"She's just being helpful," Rey said quietly. "And honestly, I'm sure a lot of people would probably love this. It's not like she's being pushy - she's just gotten all our options organized for us, and I appreciate how much time she's put into it but..." she hesitated, and shrugged. "Don't take this personally, but I'm starting to realize I couldn't care  _less_  about the wedding."

"Uh." Ben frowned, and glanced down at her with an eyebrow raised.

Rey smacked a hand to her face and groaned again. "Shit. I didn't mean it like that. I just mean I want to be married to you. I don't care about the event - the wedding itself. I want this to be about  _us_ , not about which cake flavor we picked or what font goes on the invitations. And, there's nothing  _wrong_  with liking that stuff but I just  _don't_."

"Oh," he said softly. After a moment, he let out what sounded like a sigh of relief. "That's great, actually. I hate this stuff."

What.

" _What?"_

Ben nodded, and it seemed like a huge weight had just been lifted from his shoulders. "Yeah. Rey, I love you and I really want to marry you, but I fucking hate wedding planning. I just thought you'd want this - you hadn't said otherwise, and-"

"I definitely hate it too," she said quickly. "I've just been being nice."

"Huh." After a moment, he smiled softly and asked, "So...what do you want to do here, sweetheart? How do you want to handle this? It's your call."

Before she could think of an answer, he swooped down and stole a kiss, swiping his tongue across the seam of her lips before kissing her fully and open-mouthed. Rey let him take the lead, and moaned softly, and he pressed her further back against the counter as they kissed deeply.

She pulled away grinning, nuzzling her nose against his, and he said through his smile, "Starlight, I'd marry you tomorrow in sweatpants if that's what's what you wanted - I just want  _you._ "

Rey considered his words and chewed at the inside of her cheek for a second, and ducked out of his arms, muttering, "Hold on. Give me a sec." She pulled out her phone and rapidly started googling the pertinent information, and as soon as she found it, she turned around and gave him a massive grin.

"Okay, let's do it."

He blinked at her. "What?"

Stress and tension left her in waves, and she rushed him, jumping and trusting him to catch her (which he did, thankfully, with a surprised  _oof_ ). With her legs wrapped around his middle, her arms around his neck, and a ridiculously large smile, she laughed and clarified her words, "Marry me tomorrow. There's no waiting period here. We can go to a courthouse tomorrow with some witnesses, pay a few fees, fill out some forms, and get married."

"Are you serious?" he breathed, cradling her against him with an arm under her. "You really wouldn't mind?"

She shook her head quickly. "The only thing I mind is waiting another eleven months to marry you. Look, I've got a white summer dress - you can put on a button up, we can meet everyone there and if we do it tomorrow the date of our anniversary will be pretty hard to forget."

Ben's eyes had gone wide at some point, and she smiled down at him softly, running her hands through his hair, whispering as she asked, "Marry me, Ben?"

"Yeah," he murmured. He cleared his throat, still seeming a bit shocked by the way their day of preliminary wedding planning had gone. "Yeah, of course I'll marry you."

She grinned, leaning down to capture his lips, and she poured her joy and gratitude into the kiss, working over his mouth as it hit her - sometime in the next twenty-four hours, this man would be her  _husband_ , and that really was completely crazy, but the  _good_  kind of-

Someone  _hem-hem'ed_  from the entry to the kitchen, and she pulled out of the kiss, laughing gleefully. She'd known without looking that it was Luke, and as she glanced past Ben, her view of the amused and unsurprised man confirmed that.

"Shoulda' known that's what you two were doing in here," he chuckled, shaking his head. "What, four years and you still haven't gotten it out of your systems?" With an eye roll he explained, "They sent  _me_  to check on you. Probably figured I'd scare you into coming back out, but the joke's on them because I hate wedding planning and I'm just going to kill time for a while before I join them again."

Ben chortled, setting her back down on the floor, and ran a hand through his hair. "Well, Uncle Luke, I think we've got some good news for you then." He glanced at her quickly, and she nodded, giving him permission to say it. "We're uh...getting married-"

"Yeah, I think I figured that out," Luke interrupted dryly. "The aforementioned nightmarish wedding planning must have ruined the surprise."

"No, no," Ben laughed, "You didn't let me finish. We're getting married  _tomorrow."_

Luke's sly, teasing smile suddenly grew into something surprised and curious, and then he snickered. "Your mother is going to kill you if you elope without telling her." He hesitated and winked, "I approve of skipping a formal wedding, if that counts for anything. Courthouse weddings take maybe ten minutes. Sign a few papers, say a few words, and side-step the whole wedding-planning process. Save a lot of money, too."

"That's what we figured," Ben nodded.

Rey hesitated. Something about the way Luke had said that.

"Did you and Amilyn get married?" she asked bluntly, going off instinct.

Blue eyes twinkled at her.

That was enough of an answer.

"No way _,_ " Ben breathed, staring at Luke. "Is she right? Holy shit. Did you get  _married?"_

Luke let out a little laugh, smiling like a fool, and took a few steps back out toward the hallway. The bastard was running away without answering them, and Rey pursued him, muttering, "I swear, Luke, if you got married and didn't tell us-"

But by then, Luke had gotten back out to the living room. They'd both followed quickly behind them, and before Rey could get out another word, he cut her off, winking again as he announced to the room, "Hey everyone, Ben and Rey have something they'd like to tell you!"

Suddenly, all eyes were on them.

That mischievous little troll had thrown them under the bus.

Hux and Phasma looked bored out of their minds and seemed happy for the break in planning, but Rose seemed a little annoyed to have been torn from her laptop, which she was probably still using to look through options for bridesmaids gowns for her and Phasma. Poe and Finn had given up on whatever they'd been doing about an hour earlier, and both glanced back at them, momentarily ignoring the movie someone had put on.

Leia frowned, looking up at them from their dining room table curiously. She blinked, and asked, "What, did you finally figure out which font you want for the invitations?"

Laughter bubbled up in Rey's chest, and she started giggling, much to everyone's confusion. Ben snorted, glancing over at her with a knowing, amused smile. Through giggles, she worked out the words, "Oh,  _hell_  no _._ "

Ben cleared his throat. "Uh...what she's trying to say is that we've decided to go to the courthouse tomorrow. We don't really want to wait and honestly we've realized all of this wedding planning stuff isn't really our thing. We'd love it if you all came with us. Maybe after we can have lunch at the diner?"

The room was silent.

Their friends all seemed shocked, but quite happy, but nobody reacted except to smile and slowly, everyone glanced over at Leia, whose jaw had practically hit the floor.

She was the first one to speak.

"So…" she cleared her throat, and paused. "So, you're getting married at a courthouse. And your reception is lunch at the diner?"

Her tone didn't give anything away, and nervously, Rey could only think to blurt out, "Well, Luke and Amilyn eloped! At least we're  _telling_  you guys!"

She slapped a hand over her mouth as soon as she said it, but she felt no shame.

Well. That'd teach Luke to throw them under the bus, wouldn't it? After all, he wasn't her Grand Master anymore. He was family and she felt no compunction about screwing with him.

Suddenly the room erupted in noise, and Luke shot her a look that was a mix of incredulity and amusement.

"When?"

"You  _what?"_

"Whoa!"

"Congrats!"

Everyone had happy reactions...except for Leia, who just sort of stared and blinked at them. It was one of the first times Rey had ever seen her future mother-in-law truly surprised, and she waited quietly for the woman's reaction.

After a moment, she laughed, muttered something under her breath about losing a bet, and snorted. "First, Luke.  _Idiot._  You should have married her a decade ago. Maybe earlier. Maybe then you wouldn't have gotten into quite so much trouble over the past few years."

Then Leia turned more toward her and Ben, and sighed, sounding relieved. "I'm glad you said something. I love weddings, but I had a feeling you weren't enjoying yourselves." She shook her head, walking over to them, and she smiled fondly. "This is about you two. Have your wedding whenever. Wherever. It's your decision to make. I just hope I get to see it."

Relief filled Rey, and she smiled gratefully at the woman, just before closing the distance between them to wrap her in a hug. "Thanks, Leia," she said softly. "Of course we want you there."

Leia sighed happily as she hugged her back.

But then the woman whispered in her ear, "Sweetheart, are you pregnant? Don't feel like you need to rush just to-"

"No! No, definitely not," Rey said quickly, pulling out of the hug as she blushed furiously. A quick glance around showed nobody else had heard Leia's question, thank  _God_ , and they all seemed mildly confused by her reaction.

Hux quirked an eyebrow, but shrugged and looked over to Ben, asking with a laugh, "So, hold on, you're getting married  _tomorrow?_ "

Rey looked back to Ben to confirm, and he nodded, "Yeah, that's the plan."

"Wait," Poe chuckled, "You realize that means tomorrow will end up being like, a super-anniversary, right? It's kinda the anniversary of the day we all burned down a building together."

"Yep," Rey grinned. "I figured it's a memorable date, may as well make it our wedding day too, right?"

While the group laughed Ben sighed contentedly, gazing down at her, and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. "Sounds perfect to me, sweetheart."

* * *

Ben awoke the next morning for the last time as an unmarried man.

A white lace summer dress hung off the back of Rey's closet door.

His go-to dress slacks were hanging neatly with a crisp white button-up.

All the relevant and necessary documents were already gathered, sitting in a manila folder on their dining room table.

All they had left to do was dress, sign a few papers, and say a few words, and his heart hammered at the realization. Even as he stared at the still-sleeping woman in his arms, he could hardly believe any of it was happening.

Ben could hardly believe she'd chosen to love him, nevermind  _marry_  him, and the realization that he had a future with her bubbled up in his chest and overwhelmed him in the most stunning, beautiful way.

They'd have years together. A whole lifetime.

Moments like this, when she was still asleep and he couldn't take his eyes off her. Moments when she'd lose her temper at something and he'd need to calm her (Ben had yet to find anything that worked as well as kissing her). Moments when one of them would come home stressed from work only to find that the other had prepared dinner and was ready to greet them with a hug. Moments when they'd slow dance in the kitchen wearing pajamas.

As he stared at the sunkissed, freckled face he'd fallen so deeply in love with, all he saw was his future.

They'd stumble over new titles for a while. It had taken them both a solid month or two to consistently swap to  _fiance_  over boyfriend or girlfriend.  _Husband_  or  _wife_  would probably take a little while to adjust to.

The rings would take some adjusting to, too. There would probably be a day here or there where one of them looked down and realized they'd forgotten to put them back on after doing dishes or something, then panic, only to realize they'd left them right near the sink.

Rey would finish her program and suddenly be left with a bit more free time, no longer working full time while enrolled in grad school. Maybe she'd pick up a few more Taekwondo classes. Maybe, or maybe not. Maybe she'd take up another hobby.

They'd continue renovating the building, sprucing it up and updating it...making it  _theirs_.

Something in his chest squeezed as he realized that, maybe someday, they'd have another purpose for the apartment's second bedroom.

So many things up in the air. So many changes.

But at the same time, there were some things that would never change.

He'd always love the girl in his arms. His heart would always flutter when she lifted up on her toes to murmur an  _I love you_  against his lips. He'd always remember back to that night...that night she'd found him, jumped into his arms, and reminded him he had a home to come back to.

That night that should have been so painful to remember, yet, now he could only think of it with a smile.

> _"You aren't the monster here," Rey whispered, suddenly closer to him than he ever thought she'd get. He'd given up hope of ever having her in his arms again, this close. She stared down at him and breathed the words she somehow knew he needed to hear. "Even if you were, monster or not, you're mine."_
> 
> _"Rey..." Ben uttered, not knowing what to say. She was right. His heart, soul - it was hers for the taking if she wanted it. But why would she? He was broken and damaged. He'd only bring darkness to all the light she was. But Rey didn't seem to care, because her next words were spoken truthfully, seeping with emotions so clear they struck his heart like an arrow._
> 
> _"I love you, Ben Solo."_

Soft hazel eyes fluttered open to meet his gaze. If she wondered why he was staring, she didn't say anything and instead, snuggled against his chest.

"Good morning, sweetheart," he whispered, pressing his lips to her forehead.

It took a minute or two for her to respond, and her only words were slightly unsteady. She asked them while staring at his chest, rather than up at his eyes. "Are you still sure you're okay with this? With marrying me today?"

If only she knew just how desperately he wanted it.

Ben slid his hand up slowly from her back, and he lifted her chin. Her eyes met his, wide and nervous.

"Yes," he murmured, smiling softly. "I'm going to marry you today, Rey. And then we're having lunch with our friends and family, and we're going to let them take as many pictures as they want, and then we're going to ditch them as soon as it's reasonable to do so, and we're going to come back here."

The corner of her mouth pulled into a half-grin. "Oh?" she asked curiously, "What then?"

She was probably assuming he'd say something fairly filthy, and to be fair that wouldn't have been unusual for either of them, or out of line with his plans.

Instead, he pulled her a bit closer and sighed contently.

"And then, starlight, we spend the rest of our lives together."

Rey inhaled softly, blinking a sudden and probably unexpected tear from her eye.

"Yeah," she nodded, sniffling. "Yeah, we will."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next, Epilogue: You may remember that, as a Christmas present one year, Rey gave Luke a set of essays...one on each of the five tenets, and an extra one on family. As such, the rest of the titles of our epilogue chapters are listed below.
> 
> CH 57: Perseverance: An old lesson renewed.  
> CH 58: Self-Control: A bit of fatherly advice.  
> CH 59: Indomitable Spirit: A namesake.  
> CH 60: Family: A family.
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Onfire's Twitter](https://twitter.com/thebuildingsno1)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	57. Perseverance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As we said previously, we plan to post these epilogue chapters daily. The masterpost to all fanart, moodboards, and playlists is [here.](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/180957241837/beautiful-calligraphy-courtesy-of)
> 
> You may have noticed, this is now part of a series. After the epilogue, we'll be going back to fill in some things with short stories. Most will be one-shots, but we've had requests to write certain scenes from other POVs, and there were some scenes we just couldn't fit in, so they'll be posting to the series as short stories.

He swept his hands around the room, drawing his audience's flickering attention everywhere and nowhere. Then, smiling, he picked up another one, a far more recent one than the others, of a short woman holding a trophy and sporting a vicious smile.

"That's Miss Molly!" the little one in the seat said, excitedly pointing out the obvious.

"And did we ever tell you how we met her and her parents because of this building?"

"No…"

He chuffed a laugh at the uncertain look on her face and started explaining.

-*-

" _Oh, this will be your legacy,_  
_This will be your destiny-_  
_Yesterday did not define you._  
_Oh, this will be your legacy,_  
_This will be your meant to be-_  
_I can break the chains that bind you."_

(Family Tree, Matthew West)

-*-

It had been Rey's idea to start the program, and it had blossomed quickly. After a few years of working as a guidance counselor, she'd come home one night complaining about an emphasis on team sports that had one of the students she saw stressed and more worried about it than his grades. She'd made an offhand comment that she wished Taekwondo was an after school program, and with a bit of a push from Ben, she'd started putting the program together.

At the moment it was mostly elementary school kids, but they were working on expanding a few classes for the students at the high school, like the ones Rey worked with.

Luckily, school buses drove by the Dojang, and with parental permission, students were dropped off right after school. It was a far cry from the situation Rey had been in as a kid - sneaking onto city buses to get there since she wasn't able to pay the cost of a ride.

Ben grinned softly, standing back as Rey and Phasma led the students through a warm-up. Their current class had just gotten out of school - a group from the elementary school. They were mostly under the age of eight or nine, and surprisingly more well-behaved than many of their older students.

"Master Ben! Master Ben!"

A little thing all in white with bouncing curly black pigtails ran up to him, and he tried not to laugh a bit at her excitement. Molly was one of the younger ones, and she'd come in late, not off the bus, which made him a bit curious. She came to a rapid stop right in front of him and looked up, apparently completely unintimidated by their massive height difference. Even for a seven year old, she was a tiny little thing.

Smiling down at the little girl (this kid's smile was  _infectious)_ , he said politely, "Good afternoon, Miss Molly. We were worried we wouldn't see you today. Did someone drop you off?"

She nodded rapidly. "My daddy! He wants to meet you."

"Oh." Ben had only met her mother, on the first day of the program when they'd asked parents to stop by and sign all the relevant forms, and it was always nice when kids parents wanted to stop in and check things out. "Sure, let's go meet him."

He followed her over to the seating area where a few other parents liked to watch from. They'd renovated this part too - adding in more benches, these with padding, so they were more comfortable. Not much would still feel cozy after hours of sitting to watch a promotion, but it was at least an improvement.

There was only one man sitting in the space, and Ben came to a quick halt upon seeing him.

He'd changed, of course. Six years would do that to anyone.

Ben stared for a moment at a man who's lip he'd once split - who he'd seriously injured, probably more than once. A man who'd seemed a broken, beaten shell, lashed into some sort of obedient slavery. A man who his Uncle Luke had, with a string of whispered words, seemed to challenge his view of life.

He swallowed hard, looking at a man who seemed both timid, and possibly afraid of him, and uttered, "Peavey?"

"Hey, kid," the man said to his daughter with a smile, more softly than Ben could have ever expected, "Why don't you go join Miss Rey and Master Phasma, huh? I'm sure they won't mind you starting late."

The little girl gave him a blinding smile and nodded, running off, leaving the two men in an awkward, silent moment. Peavey stood, and finally, Ben took a good look at him. He looked...happy. Healthy. Just like the average dad of a kid who took classes with them. Ben had to wonder how he even recognized the man, because the one in front of him nowhere near resembled the broken shell he'd known before.

"Can we talk?" he asked quietly. Upon noticing Ben stiffen a bit, the man added kindly, his hands up defensively, "I mean no harm. I'd just like to talk. I have some things to thank you for."

That was a little unexpected, but... _well_ , the man did send his daughter to train with them. Ben supposed that was probably a massive show of trust, so against his instincts, he nodded, and led Peavey to the office, closing the door behind them. The blinds were up on the window, and they both glanced out it before taking seats, watching Rey greet Molly with a broad grin.

"Molly loves you guys," he commented. "She never shuts up about training here." He snorted softly, taking a seat in front of the desk, "I wasn't surprised to hear about you and your wife running this place. You know, I figured you'd be smart enough to marry her. Anyone who'd get in that ring with you willingly,  _twice_ -"

"I'm very lucky," Ben interrupted quietly, nodding. He leaned forward, having sat on the other side of the desk, and said, "You seem...much happier. Healthier. I have to admit, we were worried about what would come of all of Snoke's men after everything."

Peavey nodded, though he bristled a little at the mention of their former boss. "I helped with the investigation so they wouldn't bring me up on charges. I spent a few years in therapy...probably won't practice again, but I think my wife's happy about that." He took a deep breath, and a peaceful expression spread across his face as he glanced over his shoulder, out the window, "It's worth it."

"I'm glad," Ben murmured.

The man cleared his throat, and turned back to Ben, "Your uncle said something to me. Something I'll never forget - I keep it in mind every day, and I'm still not sure how a single question could change my life, but it did."

"That sounds like something he'd do," Ben smiled softly. "He's a bit of a nut, but he's a very thoughtful, wise person." He hesitated, and asked, "Is it what he said to you that day in the diner? A couple weeks before he and Snoke fought? I was always curious about that. If you don't mind me asking-"

"I don't mind."

Peavey turned in his chair so he could look back out at where his daughter was practicing kicks, and he asked, "Do you have any kids?"

Ben sucked in a breath. It wasn't the first time he or Rey had been asked that question, but every time it still gave him the same reaction. A nervous, fluttering feeling. Some cross between hope and fear, but he couldn't exactly put the right word to it.

The problem wasn't that he couldn't imagine it. The problem was that he  _could_  - with all the little facets and consequences that would come as a result of it. The careful little peace they'd made and built would become a lot louder, because Ben held no delusions about what kind of natural disaster any child of theirs would be.

They'd learn of all the various ways things can go wrong, because Ben had worked with parents and he knew that that kind of protective instinct wasn't just turned off. He trusted Rey above everything to do right by them, but Ben couldn't control the tremulous galaxy-shuddering  _twang_  in his chest when he thought about something that  _they_  created looking up at him and calling him a word he didn't even know if he was ready to hear.

"No," he whispered. "No...not- not yet."

The man didn't seem to take note of his reaction, but he nodded, "Well, let me tell you. It changes everything. Molly was born a few months after that building burned and looking back, that should have been the last day I worked for that man. I'm not sure I'll ever forgive myself for giving him another year after that, but it was all thanks to your uncle that I finally left, and got help."

"What'd he say?" Ben asked curiously.

"Oh, nothing much," Peavey shrugged. "I didn't even realize he knew I was a dad, but he leaned in and asked  _Would Molly be proud of you?_...and you know, those six words changed everything for me."

Ben smiled slightly, and nodded. "I can imagine it would."

"Yeah," the man sighed, returning Ben's smile, "And I owe you a thank you, too. You and your wife. If you two hadn't gotten the ball rolling, caused an upset and burnt everything down, your Uncle never would have had the chance to say that - I might still be working for- for... _."_

"You can say his name," Ben whispered. "It took me a while, too. Therapy, and really, truly understanding that there were people who loved me, and wanted better for me. He's gone. He'll probably be in jail the rest of his life, and Peavey," he glanced up, said quietly, "You can say his name. He can't get to us anymore. He's not the monster in the closet, waiting for us to fall asleep - he's gone, and he's not coming back."

Peavey swallowed hard. "I know. It's still taking time to sink in."

Unfortunately, that was something Ben knew all too well, but it had been years since he'd woken up to drums - years since he'd woken up from a nightmare involving spears and blood. Years since he'd woken up from a nightmare which was far too close to what could have been.

"I know exactly how you feel," Ben admitted. He glanced up at the man, and on a whim asked, "Would you want to get a burger sometime? Maybe we could make it a double date, plus Molly? I know Rey adores her, and we'd love to see your wife again."

Peavey met his eyes, surprised, but nodded.

"Thank you...Ben."

"Not at all, Mr. Peavey."

He shook his head and extended his hand. "You can call me Eddie."

* * *

Rey was a bit curious when she saw Ben lead a man into their office, and upon a second glance, she'd almost dropped the clapper, a little training device for kicking, because she'd recognized the man. He'd been one of Snoke's men, and she gaped in their direction for a moment before a tiny little energizer bunny ran up and greeted her excitedly.

"Miss Rey! My daddy came to meet you!"

She blinked. " _Oh_." Kneeling down to get a bit closer to Molly, one of her favorite new white belts (though she'd never openly admit to having favorites), she asked, "Is that who Master Ben is talking to?"

Molly nodded.

_Oh._

She assumed Peavey came in peace, especially if he'd been trusting them with his child, so she smiled at the little girl, and glanced into the office. They seemed to be talking amicably and she let out a little sigh of relief.

"Okay, Molly, let's get through a little warm-up and then work on our kicks until Master Ben comes back out, okay?"

She nodded again, following orders better than half their teenage students did, and Rey focused her attention in on Molly and the rest of the class, assuming she'd hear more about Peavey later.

Ben came back out after a few minutes, his lips curled into a smile, and he joined the group, effectively ending their workout as Phasma called for everyone to line up and bow. Ben ordered for them to all take a seat, and since many of the students in the class were new, he gave them a friendly grin and said, "Hi, everyone. I'm glad you're all interested in Taekwondo - I'm Master Ben Solo, and before we really get back to practicing, I just wanted to talk with you a little about what we're doing."

Rey watched him pace a little, and she was hit with a sudden shocking wave of deja vu.

> _"Taekwondo is a Korean Martial Art," he explained, still pacing across the mat. He stopped for a minute and looked up at the forty or so students who had deigned to show up for the demonstration. "Martial. Art. I'm sure you've all heard of that before." His blue eyes twinkled, and it seemed like he was looking directly at Rey. "After all, who hasn't seen the Karate Kid?"_
> 
> _Rey blinked and felt herself turn red. It was like he'd read her mind. Of course, he hadn't, but somehow it was still completely embarrassing._
> 
> _"But anyway," he sighed, returning to his pacing, "Life isn't a movie, and this is Taekwondo, not Karate. So, Martial Art. Can anyone tell me which of those words is the most important?"_
> 
> _Rey shrunk back as various students raised their hands. No way was she going to attempt to make an idiot out of herself. Besides, she honestly didn't know the answer. Sure, it seemed like a 50/50 shot, but Rey had a feeling there wasn't a right answer. Finn glanced over at her and shrugged. Looked like he didn't care to answer either._
> 
> _"Martial?" An unidentified student offered._
> 
> _"Mmm," Grand Master Skywalker hummed noncommittally. "Anyone else?"_
> 
> _A boy a few rows behind Rey took a guess, likely just assuming the last student had been incorrect. "Art?"_
> 
> _"Could be," Grand Master Skywalker shrugged again. "Do you want to know the answer?"_
> 
> _He didn't wait for a response before continuing. "I'm not sure there is one."_

Her heart squeezed as she heard Ben speak up again.

"Martial. Art. Can anyone tell me which is more important?"

* * *

Later that evening, Rey stared off into the distance, mostly oblivious to whatever show Ben had put on, and she was only snapped out of it when he spoke up curiously. "You're being quiet tonight. Tired from practice?" He hesitated, and said cautiously, "You know, if you need to cut back a bit-"

"No, no, it's not that," Rey said softly. "Just...thinking."

Ben's head tilted toward her, and he muted the tv. "Anything you want to talk about?"

She paused, biting at her lip, and glanced up at him. This sort of conversation was the  _big_  kind, and she was more than a little nervous to initiate it. Instinctively going where she felt safe, she turned to him and crawled into his lap, straddling him while he wrapped his arms around her. He must have realized something was really getting to her then, because he pulled her tightly against him, letting her nuzzle into his chest as she said quietly, "You're uhm. Really good with the kids, Ben."

"Oh, yeah, they're great," he shrugged, rubbing a hand comfortingly down her back, "I've always liked teaching them, even back when Luke had just started having me help out - before you joined to Dojang."

She nodded, realizing he'd missed what she was trying to say. She leaned back, looking up into his eyes, and wrapped her arms around his neck. "You're just... _really_  good with them," she said quietly. She couldn't help but glance past him, toward the guest room that sat, constantly unused because everyone they loved lived nearby.

Ben seemed to realize where she was looking, and she watched as it dawned on him. " _Oh_."

She'd been hesitant to bring it up, but she'd been wanting to lately. They'd talked about it before marrying, of course, and they'd both left it at understanding they were possibly open to the idea at some undecided point in the future since she'd still felt a bit too young at that point, and since she'd been far too busy with grad school and establishing a career.

But...things were different now. She was closer to thirty than twenty - at an age where her friends would be more likely to say  _congrats_  than  _oh, crap_. She'd graduated with a Master's Degree, she was nearly a Master in Taekwondo, and she'd worked in a steady, rewarding job for a couple of years - paying for insurance and contributing to retirement and all those things adults did. The dojang was bringing in a surprisingly decent income, and it wasn't as if they had a mortgage or student loans to pay. Even if they did, there was the surprise matter of Ben's trust fund that he'd spent years ignoring. Now, neither of them were sure what to do with it, so it'd been silently ignored while they both assumed they'd figure out a use for it eventually.

Overall, things were  _good_. Shockingly good.

Everything, really.

Everything except that damned guest room...the one that felt empty every time she walked by. The one that would be perfectly suited to a pastel wall color, maybe a colorful rug. Maybe a crib.

"How long have you been wanting to talk about this?" he asked softly, fingers tracing soothing patterns over the back of her waist.

"A while," she admitted. "Recently, it's been on my mind more, especially since we've started this program. I don't know," she sighed, "there's just something about seeing you with them, and I can't stop wondering. What would it be like to watch you teach-" the word came out as a whisper, almost as though she was terrified to put a voice to her hopes, " _ours."_

Rey took a deep breath, addressing the fears she knew were holding him back, "I  _know_  neither of us had great childhoods, and I know and I understand why you'd be hesitant to-"

"History doesn't have to repeat itself," he said quietly. His reaction surprised her, but realistically she'd expected him to shut down the conversation, so anything would have been an improvement over that. "I'm not going to lie. I'm nervous about the idea. I-" he hesitated, and admitted, "I don't think I'd be good at it, and-"

"Ben, you'd be an amazing dad." Dark eyes met hers, and she smiled softly, "I don't think  _I_ 'd be a great parent, but  _Ben_. You should see yourself with them, you're such a natural. They love you, and you're so sweet with them. Why would it be any different with ours? If anything, you'd just love them more, and be even better with them."

He blinked at her for a few seconds, and frowned. "What do you mean, you don't think you'd be a good parent? Honestly, the biggest reason I'm seriously considering it is because you-"

"You're  _considering_  it?"

Rey hadn't meant to interrupt, but she'd done it breathlessly, shocked and excited by his possible willingness. She spent a moment trying to focus on not getting her hopes up, but Ben paused, his expression softening as he looked at her.

"Oh," he breathed, eyes wide. " _Oh_ , wow _._  You really want this, don't you, sweetheart? This...really means a lot to you."

"So much," she whispered, nodding gently. "But only if you want it, too."

His mouth opened slightly, either in surprise, or because he was about to say something, and then it closed as he swallowed hard, not taking his eyes off her. His hand came up to cup her cheek, and she leaned into his touch, her heart hammering as she waited for him to say something.

After a moment, he smiled softly.

"Okay."

Her heart stuttered, and she asked numbly, " _Okay?"_

Ben leaned in, meeting her in a soft kiss, and he murmured against her lips, "Yeah, sweetheart.  _Okay._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next, Epilogue: You may remember that, as a Christmas present one year, Rey gave Luke a set of essays...one on each of the five tenets, and an extra one on family. As such, the remaining titles of our epilogue chapters are listed below.
> 
> CH 58: Self-Control: A bit of fatherly advice.  
> CH 59: Indomitable Spirit: A namesake.  
> CH 60: Family: A family.
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Onfire's Twitter](https://twitter.com/thebuildingsno1)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	58. Self-Control

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As we said previously, we plan to post these epilogue chapters daily. The masterpost to all fanart, moodboards, and playlists is [here.](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/180957241837/beautiful-calligraphy-courtesy-of)
> 
> You may have noticed, this is now part of a series. After the epilogue, we'll be going back to fill in some things with short stories. Most will be one-shots, but we've had requests to write certain scenes from other POVs, and there were some scenes we just couldn't fit in, so they'll be posting to the series as short stories.

He picked a frame up from his desk, a gift from the day he'd received the greatest gift of all.

"Your grandpa insisted on taking this one. It's from the day we found out about you. It took me some time to adjust to the idea, but we were all  _so_  happy..."

-*-

 _"It's not time to make a change,_  
_Just relax, take it easy._  
_You're still young, that's your fault,_  
_There's so much you have to know._  
_Find a girl, settle down,_  
_If you want you can marry._  
_Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy."_

(Father and Son, Cat Stevens)

-*-

The plot of land was obscure and hidden from the world, a little alcove hidden from civilization via hidden turns, deciduous trees, and a normal person's tendency to ignore anything that didn't matter to them. Apparently, per his mom's words, she and his dad had been planning to move out of their large house and build a place out there...eventually. The land was there, empty and undeveloped, and the only sign of human presence there in years was the large rock that had clearly been put there by human hands.

His hands, in fact. It'd hurt like hell, rolling the thing from the edge of the clearing, especially as the hours wore on, but it had been at Ben's own request, and once Rey had understood that it wasn't him being deliberately masochistic, she'd let him.

He hadn't been back in years. He and Rey had passed by, now and again, and he knew his mother liked to visit the other spots occasionally, but this place was his and Rey's only. It wasn't ignorance of the past, so much as it was knowing that  _he_  wouldn't have been happy with them moping.

Looking out of the Falcon, Ben breathed a sigh of relief. He'd half expected this place to be just a dream. He killed the engine and turned off the headlights, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Moss was growing on the rock now, he couldn't help but note, and weeds and wildgrass had long reclaimed the treaded path he'd taken when he'd originally rolled it into the clearing.

There were no markers, or signs, or anything else to give away just what this place was. Just a stone in the middle of a field that you'd only find if you were trying to get lost.

Swallowing thickly, he put the car in park and opened the door. The fresh scene of the wild hit him with the all the force of a spinning back kick to the chest, and Ben had to grip the car's chicken handle lest he fall back.

He stepped out, not even doubting his presence there for a second.

The Falcon seemed to still be echoing, a ghostly purr in Ben's ears as she almost seemed to realize who they were here for.

Grabbing the brown paper bag sitting on the floor in the back, Ben walked out to the monument, taking mind to avoid stepping on any of the flowers that seemed to have sprung up in the spot.

He stopped a few steps short of the rock. Around him, the melancholy sounds of a forest ignorant of the world played a piece for them, and Ben almost left himself drift in the trailing notes of the song.

This was a good place, he decided. A good place for a man who didn't know what was good for himself at times.

"Hey dad," Ben said at last. He was still sweaty from his latest class, having skipped out on any and all post-workout ablutions as soon as he'd gotten the text from Rey. At least he'd had the good sense to change out of his dobok, once she'd assured him the news she had wasn't anything bad.

The rock stood still.

Ben reached into the brown bag he'd brought and took out a bottle of some very expensive brandy. His father's favorite, his mom had said, when Ben had finally worked up the courage to ask about the man who'd sacrificed more than he ever should've had to.

They should have been sharing this bottle over the sort of news Ben had. They should have had the chance to.

He opened it up, his hands twinging a little painfully at the force concentrated in his knuckles, and then walked over to the rock and poured some over it.

"Bet they don't have any of that where you are," Ben muttered, taking care not to get any of the splashback on his pants and shoes. The last thing he'd needed was to go home smelling like a distillery. He'd long since stopped drinking to run from his problems, not that he'd ever done much of it in the first place.

Idly, he wondered if this was disrespectful. Then again, who would it be disrespectful to? His father had enjoyed a good drink in his life and it wasn't like it hadn't been Ben who'd spread some of his ashes in this very spot years ago anyways.

The rock just stood there, being a rock, if a considerably wetter one.

Unbidden, Ben Solo laughed. It felt good to do so, as if he were defusing something critical inside him with that sound, expelling all the troubles and worries he could feel in big belly laughs that would have any passerby worried for his sanity.

"Sorry, sorry," Ben said when he finally came down from his high. "I just…I never thought I'd be here. Not  _here_  here as in here physically, because I think mom's planning on selling this place to Rey and I, but  _here_ here in the sense that I-"

He cut off. What was he here for? Did he even know?

Ben ran his hand through his hair. He'd cut it once or twice in the years since taking over the Dojang but it still seemed to grow right back regardless of what he did. Rey proclaimed endless jealousy at his naturally sleek mane, but then again it wasn't like he didn't spend enough time brushing her hair out to complain.

Thinking of Rey brought his mind to other things and those other things included the patient knowledge that everything in his life was going to change and he couldn't figure out which of terror and happiness he was feeling more. Far enough under the night sky the two feelings looked an awful lot like twins.

Oh god. What if it were…?

"We need some music," Ben announced abruptly, to no one and everyone. He was the only one around for miles, of that, he was sure, but that didn't stop the urge to be a good host. He turned back around to the Falcon, put her in first gear to ease her a few feet closer. The car came to life under his touch and he wondered if this was insanity or destiny speaking to him, because the radio came on with it too.

Stupid thing had been on the fritz for a while. Turning off and on at some inconvenient times. He'd been meaning to fix it up when he had time, but one thing had led to another and he'd forgotten.

Ben's head snapped to the side, half-guessing he'd see a ghostly figure pressing buttons and turning tubes to get to the station. Stupid, of course. They'd gone for a completely electronic setup years ago.

Of course,  _that_  song had to come up. His dad had liked to sing it whenever it came on, warbling and cueing Ben on when to join in himself, not that it was a duet. His dad hadn't much cared for musical conventions either. He hadn't cared for much at all, except for a spare few important things.

Exiting the Falcon was as much to get fresh air as it was for Ben to believe the clearing hadn't somehow gotten quieter with the soothing rumble of the car and the low, strumming guitar rhythm that'd entered the background of the setting. He leaned against the hood and let the warmth of the engine chase away the clawing cold from the late season.

"Rey's been good," Ben said to the air around him. There was an expectant air to the space around him and whether that was himself projecting his own feelings on everything, he wanted to satiate its curiosity. "She's a Master now. She's been doing pretty great at her job, all the kids love her, even if she can't seem to understand why. Uncle Luke just returned from another one of his trips with Amilyn. He's gotten a tan now." What was he doing? His mouth kept moving and Ben surrendered to the feeling. "Mom is...mom. She's offered to sell me and Rey her place since she wants something smaller, but honestly I-"

A grip seemed to clutch his throat, driving all air from his lungs. Where the Ben of before would have ignored it and moved on, this one - the Ben of now - looked at the feeling. He looked at it, understood, and accepted it.

"-I don't want to leave our place," Ben murmured. "Not yet. Maybe, in like ten years or so. I just...no offense to you or mom, but I wanted to start where we are right now."

He was prevaricating. Anyone who knew him would see that and as much as his younger self had tried to avoid it after being left with Luke, his father had known him. Maybe not the finer details, but there was a lot to learn about a person, and Ben had never been subtle. He'd worn his heart on his sleeve his entire life.

"Rey, she...she told me something today."

She'd done it in the most understanding way, anticipating how he'd react before he even had the chance to. Ben knew for a fact that he hadn't had a full tank of gas in the Falcon that morning, but when she'd sat Ben down at their table, with his favorite meal from Maz's (the woman had stopped working full-time, but the replacement manager/chef had learned from the best), she'd made sure he'd eaten at least half before telling him.

Her voice had been soft, only waivering slightly, and her eyes had been bright. Full of more joy than he'd seen. She'd been shining. Glowing, even.

She'd had the keys out already for him, along with a sealed and faded enveloped.

Ben swallowed hard and murmured, "Dad...I'm going to be a dad."

And part of Ben was nothing short of ecstatic at the news. He'd had dreams of this day. Hell, he'd had dreams of the kind of face they'd bring home from the hospital. Pink, round, loud. As much as Ben had calmed down from his youth, he knew, instinctively, that any child they had would start raising hell the moment they were brought home.

Dreams of picking them up and taunting them about still being too short to take on their old man. Dreams about surprising Rey with breakfast in bed on Mother's day. Dreams about being the lucky one to have them as  _his_  child.

But for every sleeping dream, Ben was also afraid.

He didn't fear the changes that would come to their lives. He'd read up and dedicated himself to learning as much about the changes that all parents go through - the sleepless nights, the exhaustion at keeping up with a non-combustible source of infinite energy and all the various disasters they caused just by accident, let alone the sort of trouble one could cause on purpose.

He feared none of that.

What he feared was the fact that  _he'd_ be the one being called "Dad" now. He wouldn't be looking for some other adult in the room, some other responsible human being to foist the duty of this child on to. He'd be the one they'd turn to. To some little kid, he'd be greater than Superman, smarter than Batman, the tall invincible hero who'd look down at them and  _smile_  even if every bit of him wanted to gibber and gab and run to the nearest shelter because  _who the hell thought he was going to be a good parent?_

Rey, his mind supplied. Rey did. The woman with more sense in her smile than Ben had ever had in his whole life, and she'd picked him and said, " _You'll be fine."_

"I just-" Ben took a deep breath, "Oh, I'm really freaking out, dad."

Well, that was the least of it. There was a faint air of amusement coming from the rock. Or maybe that was Ben projecting again.

"I wish you were here," he said. It wasn't the first time he'd admitted that but it burned and soothed all the same, to say that after years of strained belief. "I mean, it's not like this is a surprise. I'm not an idiot, obviously I knew this was a distinct possibility. Well, not just a  _possibility_ , we were specifically  _trying,_ for almost a year actually, so you'd think it would have hit me by now, you know? But I didn't think I'd be so-"

The car hiccuped, a streak of noise in the engine, and either Ben was losing it, but that sounded distinctly like a chuff of laughter.

He blinked, and said softly, "I didn't think I'd be so scared. What if I fuck it all up?"

There was a difference between fucking up his own life and fucking up someone else's. Everyone else - everyone in his life was an adult and had enough sense to know when to call him out on being obtuse (not that that happened much anymore, mostly during their movie nights). But a kid...his  _own_  kid? Ben trusted Rey but like hell was he going to not give his damndest and raise the smartest, greatest little hellion ever.

Still, just because you try your hardest didn't mean it couldn't go awry. After all, look at how he and Han had ended up.

"Rey was  _so_  excited when she told me, and I know I shouldn't have left and come out here, dad, but I panicked, and I needed to breathe." She had even been prepared, the devious wonderful genius of a wife that she was. "I love her so much - and all of the sudden I love them both so much that it's terrifying. I didn't even know I  _could_ love this much. I just keep thinking...what if I screw up?"

Ben pushed off from the hood, and, mindful of making sure he didn't lean his shirt against the cold wetness of the brandy's trail on the stone, he sat down beside the rock and leaned back against it.

It was probably all in his head, but the rock felt like his dad did. Or at least, how his earliest of his dad felt. Strong, large, unshakeable in a way so intrinsic the thought of anything happening to him - to  _them_  - was inconceivable.

"Maybe I won't even be enough for them," Ben admitted. He was smiling through tears, because dammit, he  _wanted_  this. Them. Rey and his child. He wanted them and a life so full of love it would radiate to those around them.

He rested his head back against the stone and looked at the Falcon whispering, "I don't know how to do this." His smile disappeared as his vision blurred. The stone felt more comforting than he'd ever thought it would. "Please, dad. Please, tell me how to do this."

He waited for the answer, wondering if his mind would provide the answer in the facsimile of human interaction he'd been getting ever since pulling into the clearing. When nothing came, he couldn't stop the chuckle of self-recrimination.

He folded his arms over his chest, and the movement made a crinkling sound. Ben frowned, and then remembered the envelope Rey had handed him before he'd hopped in the car, running away like a coward. Curious, he took it out and opened it up, finding a folded piece of lined paper. Immediately, he noticed the handwriting he'd seen on dozens of birthday cards.

His breath caught as he read the letter, and he choked back a sob as he got to a particular part. They were words he'd never expected to read.

> _I don't deal much in "Maybes" and "I don't knows", kid. When Ben got born and I realized I actually had a duty to someone smaller than my knee and who didn't know not to stick a fork in the socket (true story, ask him), I was goddamn terrified. But I never closed my eyes and I kept walking and even if the boy hates my guts now, I'm damn proud of him._

His vision went blurry for a moment as he stared at those words, and, eventually, a tear fell, joining a particularly blotchy stain near the end of the letter.

"'Maybe's' and 'I don't knows' huh?" he repeated back to himself, running his own words back in his head.

He brought his knees up and held his head in his hands. Really, it was like some cosmic joke.

No, not a joke. Just a parent reaching out to his child across time, space, and a whole crapload of trouble.

Just like his dad.

Ben sucked in the crisp air and then sighed, wiping a few tears away. Some of the wildgrass had peaked under his shirt, and it cut and tickled at the same time, and didn't that just sum up his entire relationship with his father in one sentence? There was dirt on his hands, but Ben didn't care about that nor did he expect Rey would mind if he came back looking so messy either.

The song on the radio came to a close, and something light took its place in Ben's chest as the last notes plucked from the guitar faded into the night sky.

After a few moments he nodded, and said softly, "Alright. Thanks, Dad. I- I think I got the message. I still wish you were here, though."

It was harder to rise from that stone than it rightfully should have been. No stone could ever replace his father, but it wasn't a matter of replacing. It was a matter of drawing comfort from the memory and eventually putting that security blanket on the shelf, mindful of its origin and knowing it was there.

He patted down his pants, noting that as careful as he'd been, he'd still gotten some of the brandy on his hands and shirt. Carefully, he turned back to the stone, the marker for the ashes he'd buried long ago and said softly, "I have to go away now."

There was no good-bye, because it wasn't good-bye.

That was okay. Ben's memory hadn't deteriorated such that he couldn't remember one of his father's favorite partings. At the very least, he could say these words in his father's place.

"See you around, kid."

After that he got in the Falcon, taking special care not to rumple the letter Rey had given him. There was a special heat in the cabin of the car, as if the machine was pleased with the outcome of Ben's meeting with memories and wishes. The sky was lit brilliantly by the full moon, and he took a moment as he was reversing out of the clearing to stop and stare at the world that his child was going to be born into.

It was beautiful. Scary, so scary it would make movie monsters seem paltry in comparison, but the sky, the moon, the stars...they made it worth it.

When he was two miles down the off-road he'd taken to come out there, and just about to pull out onto the cross-street, Ben stopped. He pulled to the side, for all that no one even knew this dirt path existed. He sighed again and pulled out his phone, pressing in a number he'd known by heart for years.

The phone rang for maybe half a second before the soft, mellifluous voice of his wife came on, stringy with concern and hidden tension.

"Ben?"

"Hey, starlight," Ben said quietly, and he could practically feel the relief from her on the other end of the line.

"How did it go?"

Ben thought of the stickiness he felt, the building ache in his bones for not taking a shower earlier and leaning against a stone about thigh high, with little jagged edges and crevices and the problem of the wildgrass cutting his exposed skin, however accidentally. There was an ever present ache in his hands, resentfully reminding him he wasn't twenty-five anymore and there was a distinct possibility he would wake up emotionally exhausted for all the right reasons tomorrow.

"It went pretty well." He smiled as he heard her snort. "Honest. Just had a chat with him."

He could just imagine her now, switching hands to hold the phone as she changed her center of balance while standing. She'd probably been looking up parent-things on her laptop. Nothing specific. The information was still a little too  _right_   _now_  for anything specific, but Rey was nothing if not loving and dedicated.

"You're covered in mud and grass, aren't you?" she asked, a teasing lilt to her voice. Ben fastidiously ignored the sniffle he heard.

He looked down at himself. Even in the dark, he could make out the dirt and splotches where the alcohol had sunk into his clothing.

"It was a pretty close chat," Ben admitted, something rough and raw escaping. "But hey listen, what do you say we go be nuisances and tell someone else? Like, right now?"

"...who did you have in mind?"

He had a very specific set of people in mind.

When Ben and Rey showed up later at Leia's house, at eleven o' clock at night, after calling her and asking her to grab Luke for this too, Ben was still gross and dirty, and yet his soul had never felt cleaner.

Rey's desperate, maddened kiss as she'd all but leapt in his arms when he'd stepped through the door of their apartment to pick her up had only magnified that. They'd stayed that way for a little while before leaving, just holding each other while reality sunk in in the best way possible.

The ride to his mom's place had happened at an excruciating pace. It was both too fast and too slow at the same time, even if he'd been in perfect control of the car's speed. How many times had his own family faked self-control just for his benefit? How many times was he going to have to do this for his own kid?

One look at Rey, at her sunshine smile and the knowing glint in her teary eyes told him his answer.

Forever. Forever and always.

They didn't even bother to knock on the door to Leia's place, practically barging in to the entry. This stirred a startle from the other occupants of the house, all of whom had been gathered in the living room, chatting amiably if a little sleepily.

"Ben?" his mom asked, only mildly shocked. Threepio had finally relaxed enough around her over the years to allow himself to sit down in her presence, but his own reaction was far more extreme than Ben's.

Rey came up behind him, smiling fondly and looking torn between chastising Ben for running inside and joining him in the excitement.

He took a quick evaluation of the room. Amilyn and Luke were sitting on the couch. She looked like she'd been napping against his shoulder, and Ben couldn't help but smile at the sight of them. The two of them were even more obnoxious in their displays of affection than Ben and Rey at times, a pleasant reversal of their years hiding their relationship.

"Ben? What's wrong?" Luke said, sitting up a little straighter. He'd gained some weight over the years, but it looked good on him. Made him look fuller, instead of gaunt, as he'd been approaching towards the end of his tenure as Grand Master.

Ben stopped, sniffled a bit, and wiped another tear from his eyes as he took a deep breath. His hand immediately sought out Rey's, and she practically molded herself to him with a hug.

_I was goddamn terrified._

He chuckled and said, "Uncle Luke, Mom, Amilyn...there's something we need to tell you. Honestly, I'm still freaking out about it a little but uh..."

 _But I never closed my eyes and I kept walking._  
  
He cleared his throat, and much to his surprise, his lips curled into a soft smile.

"Rey and I...we're gonna be parents."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next, Epilogue: You may remember that, as a Christmas present one year, Rey gave Luke a set of essays...one on each of the five tenets, and an extra one on family. As such, the remaining titles of our epilogue chapters are listed below.
> 
> CH 59: Indomitable Spirit: A namesake.  
> CH 60: Family: A family.
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Onfire's Twitter](https://twitter.com/thebuildingsno1)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	59. Indomitable Spirit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As we said previously, we plan to post these epilogue chapters daily. The masterpost to all fanart, moodboards, and playlists is [here.](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/post/181017404537/beautiful-calligraphy-courtesy-of)
> 
> You may have noticed, this is now part of a series. After the epilogue, we'll be going back to fill in some things with short stories. Most will be one-shots, but we've had requests to write certain scenes from other POVs, and there were some scenes we just couldn't fit in, so they'll be posting to the series as short stories.

"I know you've probably seen this one a million times, but that's you and Grandma Leia, the day you were born. Kid, you were so little," he said fondly.

"No, I wasn't," she said, crossing her arms and pouting up at him, daring him to correct her. "I've  _never_  been little."

He rolled his eyes, but let her have this. "We all fought over whose turn it was to hold you, but I won. Your mom was so tired and she needed to rest, so you slept in my arms…"

-*-

" _Goodnight my angel, now it's time to dream,_  
_And dream how wonderful your life will be._  
_Someday your child may cry, and if you sing this lullabye,_  
_Then in your heart there will always be a part of me._

 _Someday we'll all be gone,_  
_But lullabies go on and on,_  
_They never die,_  
_That's how you and I will be."_

(Lullabye, Billy Joel)

-*-

And suddenly, everything changed.

It wasn't a bad change, not that he ever thought it would or could be. Terrifying, maybe. Suddenly, there was this little bundle of pink, wrapped in white, kissed by clouds and hugged by stars and he loved it more than...well, anything.

There...there was just this little thing that had captured his heart, and nobody had warned him what it would feel like. One second it had all been just a dream, and the next he'd heard her cry for the first time and the overwhelming joy had taken hold of every one of his senses, blinding him to everything but her.

Ten fingers, ten toes. Rey's light hazel eyes, though they'd been told they could darken to match his brown. His own ears, and he sincerely hoped she'd grow into them better than he had.

Ben Solo felt himself fall in love all over again as he stared down at the little bundle in his arms that was clutching at one of his fingers. She was making soft noises, but nothing quite like earlier.

"Can I hold her again?" The voice was scratchy and tired, full of more emotion than he'd ever heard, but at the same time it was full of hope and disbelief at the new addition to their family.

His wet eyes shot to Rey, and he nodded quickly. She looked exhausted and suddenly, even more so than before, there was nothing he wouldn't do for her...the mother of his child. "Yeah, yeah, of course sweetheart. Sorry, I just- she's just so beautiful," he breathed. "Here-"

Rey reached out, and he helped nestle their daughter in her arms, supporting her arms for a moment to let her get used to holding something after everything she'd just been through. For a brief moment, he'd thought there was nothing more stunning than the sight of the little girl in his arms...but then he saw his wife holding her, and again, his entire view of the world shifted. Ben swallowed the delirious giggle that threatened to escape him because now wasn't the time and he didn't know if he'd be able to stay standing if he let go.

After a moment of staring down at the bundle she held, Rey burst out into tears...rivers of lachrymose waters and an uncontrollable hiccup that had her spouting a new set of tears within seconds. Ben didn't say anything, sympathizing so painfully she needn't explain.

He tried to remove his hands from where he was helping Rey prop their child up. "Please don't," Rey asked, turning to look him in the eyes.

He hesitated. He wanted nothing more in the world than to scoop these two up and hold them tight forever, but he knew how sensitive everything was now. "You sure?" Ben whispered, keeping his voice deliberately low and soft, "I don't want to crowd you and I know things are probably-"

"Keep helping me hold her, Ben. Stay close," Rey asked, eyes shining with stars and a voice tremulous in the sterile white hospital room, "I just- I-"

She didn't have to finish the sentence for him to grasp her meaning. With nary a word and a cooed sound his hand slipped under her elbow again, helping maintain the balanced hold she had on their daughter. Rey was warm, hot and still sweaty, and he could tell she was exhausted, but there was strength in her petite form, one that Ben envied and devoted himself to.

A few seconds passed, and Ben started humming. It was a nonsense noise not meant to be anything more than soothing, which of course was when Rey's crying started up again.

"I'm sorry," she sniffled, once she'd gotten the tears down to a manageable level, "I don't even know  _why,_ but-"

"It's normal," the nurse sighed. She'd retreated to another part of the room after the doctor and a couple other nurses had left, busying herself with meaningless actions that helped her fade into the background of their perception, but it seemed she had finally decided to speak up. "I'm sorry honey, but you're probably going to be pretty emotional for a while. Your hormones are going to be all over the place."

He could tell Rey was trying to form a word, a sentence, anything, before the fresh wave of tears and wet hiccups came upon her and drowned any chance of that.

 _She_  didn't say anything, content to snooze amidst a room so full of love it beggared the mind how this much goodness was even possible.

The nurse smiled tenderly at them. She had blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and a smile that told of a lifetime of dealing with similar situations. "When I had my first, I started sobbing because my slippers were on the wrong feet. It's normal to cry, or be anxious or irritable, especially in the next week, and your emotions will probably be all over the place for a while. That's all perfectly normal." She seemed to think carefully, evaluating them before she let out a soft groan of sympathy. "It's not fun, but it's normal."

Ben was a little relieved he hadn't been the one to break that bit of news. There was a slight chance it had been a mistake for him to be the one to read all the parenting books, but Rey had panicked a bit after reading exactly what she could expect during birth, so she'd stopped and trusted him to give her the pertinent information.

"Do you want some more time before I let any guests in?" the woman asked kindly. "There are an awful lot of people here to see you three."

He looked to Rey, letting her make the decision. As much as he loved everyone who was waiting patiently, the two girls laying in front of him in a hospital bed were his world, and everyone else could spend another twelve or more hours waiting outside if that's what Rey wanted. He'd already gone out to tell them she'd been born, healthy and perfect.

Hux had hugged him, proclaiming he couldn't wait to meet his favorite niece, and everyone else looked like they'd all fallen asleep while waiting. They could wait a little longer. They'd understand.

"What do you suggest?" Rey asked, not taking her eyes off their daughter. Ben could empathize. He never wanted to take his eyes off her again himself.

The nurse hesitated, answering, "It depends on the people. Too many loud or excited people might be overwhelming. You've got quite a few, so I'd suggest having them in two groups - first family, then friends."

Ben smiled softly. "They're all family."

"Yeah, they are," Rey nodded. Then the looked up to the nurse and asked quietly, "Can we have them all in? We'd like to tell them all her name, all at once."

The nurse seemed to bite her lip, probably to suggest that that might not be prudent, but she looked between the three of them -  _three,_  holy crap, there were  _three_ of them now - and something warm took over.

"Sure," the nurse agreed. "But don't hesitate to press the call button if it gets to be too much. I don't mind nicely asking people to give you space. You just went through quite an experience. If you need space, you need space, okay?"

Rey sniffled again, smiling at the woman. "Thanks."

"No problem, honey. I'll go get your guests."

* * *

Everyone came in acting appropriately subdued. Even Poe and Phasma, who Ben had been admittedly a little worried about, barely made a rustle of clothing as they crossed the threshold from the outside world into the perfect world inside the room. They filed in in a hush, some with those obnoxious gift shop balloons (cough Hux cough), but for the most part they took residence on the outer edges of the space available.

The only sign of acknowledgement from Ben, Rey, and  _her_  was a small, almost too-precious-for-this world groan and wriggle, that she soon gave up on when it proved too bothersome to move much.

That single action seemed to inspire a collective intake of breath and for once Ben was the one who was able to see others fall in love with their child.

Their  _child._

Part of him still couldn't believe it.

Ben wiped his eyes of tears that never came, and couldn't stop the grin from forming on his face as he looked at his family, and the new little flicker of light who'd joined them.

Slowly, after checking with Rey, Ben looked at them and gestured for them to come closer.

Luke, Leia and Amilyn came around on Ben's side. While Finn and Poe stuck to the foot of the bed, and Rose, Hux, and Phasma rounded the other side. They all made sure to give Rey plenty of room, everyone intrinsically understanding the possible need for space Rey might need. Ben himself was half sitting on the edge of the bed alongside Rey, one arm around her shoulders, letting her rest her head on him while he reached across with his other hand, and was supporting Rey's elbow from below.

In Rey's arms, his dream in human form yawned, and Ben counted the seconds until he could breathe again.

"She's got your ears, Ben," his mom commented from beside him. Ben had to wrench his eyes away from his child to look at her.

His whole body was vehemently protesting at the strange contortions and positions he was putting himself through, but he found that whatever pains there were no longer mattered much. Not in light of the illumination held in his wife's arms.

"I'm glad," Ben hoarsely whispered. He'd lost track of time and at some point his throat had clogged with emotion. "She's too perfect already. Too much more and I'm not sure I could take it."

Rose sniffled and turned around briefly to get herself under control. Hux and Phasma moved as one and wrapped the relatively tiny girl between them, hugging her. He could see the congratulatory grin on Phasma's face, and all the mischief and madness she was looking forward to teaching the innocent bundle.

After a moment, Phasma let Hux take Rose in his arms while she took a step closer, kneeling down by Rey's side as she stared at the little bundle. "You guys," she choked, "she's so..."

"I know," Rey sighed, nodding gently. She still couldn't take her eyes off the little one in their arms.

"I didn't even think I  _liked_  babies," Phasma laughed, her voice thick with emotion, and then she whispered, "But I think I love her."

Finn and Poe were gripping their hands tight, their engagement rings showing even as they both drank in the sight before them. Ben had already promised Poe babysitting rights for the future, only with the caveat that Finn be there to mitigate any calamity his personality was likely to inspire. Truth be told, Ben really just liked Finn and thought the man deserved a medal for getting Poe to grow up.

Poe cleared his throat, blinking for a moment, and said quietly, "She's already got a lot of Aunts and Uncles who love her. Not that we'll all be good influences…"

Ben huffed softly, laughing a bit at that. They'd make good babysitters...eventually. Not now. Now was time for he and Rey to hold this moment of infinity and submerge themselves in the affection and care they could feel running under their skin.

As he turned back to his wife and child, grinning his own stupid grin, Ben sighed contentedly.

Luke stepped up beside him, ever the graceful crane even in his sixties. Amilyn was there with him, sniffling and whispering words too low to make out but full of love nevertheless, and the sound faded into the background as she took in a family and sang them a song meant for no other ears.

"Do any of you want to hold her?" Rey asked, looking up at Luke, and then Leia. Her face was blotchy with tears and exhaustion and she looked so strong,  _so strong_ , and Ben was in awe of her. She blinked tears out of her eyes and the caring and encouraging smile on her was resolute.

As one, the twins in the room shared a look and a small enigmatic smile was exchanged between the two and Leia conceded with a nod.

Ben lifted her from Rey's arms with more care and caution than he'd ever handled anything else in his life, because now his life was in his arms, snuggled in cotton and with a healthier blush than any pink hyacinth in the world. It was like carrying the world with his hands, and those old things, painful and aching, groused and whined, but they never shook because Ben Solo had long since stopped letting himself and his family down.

Luke looked on seriously as Ben, who'd once reached no taller than his knee, brought her over to him. They shared no words, just an understanding look between father and son as the son helped the older hold the next generation in his arms. Fighting every instinct to stay close, Ben stepped back and gave them some space.

Luke held the baby, and Ben relaxed, knowing he had no reason to worry. The man was an old pro at this. He held her up and practically posed, letting everyone take a look at this wonder of the world from another angle.

"So," he said softly, speaking up for the first time since entering the room, "does my grandniece have a name?"

"Granddaughter," Rey corrected.

Luke glanced up at Rey with suddenly shining, questioning eyes that were starting to get watery.

"Luke," she whispered, "You're the only father I have, of course you're her grandfather."

Recognizing a man who needed to take a moment to himself, Ben moved forward to intercept, but his mother was there instead. She came by, helping her brother sit down on the small couch that was inside the room for guests.

"Oh," Leia breathed, looking down at her granddaughter with unabashed love, " _Oh_ , she's beautiful."

"You want to hold her?" Luke asked, smiling through his happy tears. "My- my  _granddaughter?"_

The woman looked to Ben and Rey, who both nodded, before gently taking the small bundle from her twin. "I forgot how tiny these things are," she gasped. "The normal ones, I mean. Ben was huge." She glanced at Rey, "You got lucky with this little one. He was nearly ten pounds."

There was some choked laughter from behind him, probably Hux, but Ben didn't care. He didn't care because everything was good and no gentle ribbing would do anything but remind Ben that suddenly, almost his entire family in this room. More family than he'd ever thought he could have.

"She's perfect," Rey sighed. "I've never seen anything so perfect." Sniffling softly, she wiped at her eyes and added, "Sorry - it's all the hormones. I'm a bit of a mess right now."

"That's normal. It took me quite a while to feel like myself after having Ben," Leia reassured her, "and she  _is_  perfect. Does my grandbaby have a name yet?"

Ben hesitated, looking to his wife, who'd started tearing up again. "I- I can't," she whispered to him. "It's a perfect name, but can you tell them? It- it's a bit too much, right now."

"Of course, sweetheart," he murmured, leaning in to press a gentle kiss to her forehead. His lips lingered there while he wondered for a moment how it was possible to love another human quite so much without his heart bursting. "Are you sure you're okay with what we picked?"

She nodded rapidly, and gave him a tight, but sincere smile, and he cupped her face, gently wiping her tears while he stared into the eyes of the woman who'd not just saved his life, but changed it completely.

Ben took a deep breath, hardly prepared to say the name himself. He'd be lucky to get it out without crying, and he didn't have the excuse of hormones that Rey did.

With another deep breath, he looked up to their now curious guests, and he heard a voice.  
  
_I was goddamn terrified._  
  
"Yeah, we picked a name," he said finally, giving his mother a bittersweet smile.

_But I never closed my eyes and I kept walking._

"Hannah," he said softly, squeezing Rey's shoulder as she let out a quiet sob. "We named her Hannah."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next, Epilogue: You may remember that, as a Christmas present one year, Rey gave Luke a set of essays...one on each of the five tenets, and an extra one on family. As such, the remaining titles of our epilogue chapters are listed below.
> 
> CH 60: Family: A family.
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Onfire's Twitter](https://twitter.com/thebuildingsno1)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	60. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A personal note from Onfire:
> 
> This story…man, just…this story…
> 
> So, as you can probably tell, this story hit us close to home. We drew on a lot of our personal experiences to write this, and we also drew on a lot of things that we'd never tackled in writing before, like explicitly addressing mental health, the various faults of our protagonists, how things in life just don't work sometimes no matter how much we want them to. We've talked about family, duty, and every one of the various tenets of Taekwondo in some fashion or other throughout this story, and we hope that if you've stuck with us this long that you enjoyed it even half as much as we enjoyed writing it.
> 
> I'm so glad Attack asked me to join her as a co-writer for this. This has been an absolute delight to write, and it's taught me so much about my own wife throughout the process too. Co-writing with your spouse can be a deeply intimate and emotional experience, but I'm glad Attack braved that question, because I'm not sure I would have been able to. She's always been the braver of the two of us, and I count myself infinitely lucky that I got to share in this long project with her.
> 
> We thank you for reading our story, and we hope, that if you ever think of it again after you leave the tab, that you consider it fondly.
> 
> A personal note from Attack:
> 
> When I originally thought of Equilibrium, I'd just thought there were some interesting parallels between Jedi Philosophy and Taekwondo Philosophy. I never expected it to be popular, and if anything, I just thought it'd be kind of fun to write. It was going to be my longest fic, clocking in at an estimated 35 chapters and maybe 150K words. I don't think I'll ever be able to explain how glad I am that my husband (and now co-writer) joined me after Chapter 7. With his help this story took on an entirely different meaning, and became richer than I could have ever hoped.
> 
> Eight months, sixty chapters, and almost half a million words later, this isn't a story that explores parallels between two philosophies.
> 
> This has been our love letter to Taekwondo.
> 
> Thank you for reading it. If you plan to reread at some point in the distant future, we suggest downloading a copy.

 

Master Luke,

I'd never claim to be an expert on the tenets. I think I could practice Taekwondo the rest of my life and still never really practice each of them to the best of my ability. I'll probably never be as courteous as I should be, and I'll never have much self-control, but thanks to you, I'll at least try. I still stand behind my answer that some tenets are more important to some people than others, but I'd like to revise that answer.

I once said that the most important ones to me were Perseverance and Indomitable Spirit, and you can probably tell from the essays I've written that those are the ones I feel most strongly about. But there's one that I think might be more important than all of them, and technically it was never even included.

Respectfully, I think whoever created Taekwondo, or whoever determined which words should be tenets missed one. Yes, Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self-Control, and Indomitable Spirit are extremely important to martial artists, but sir, there's one missing.

One that's vital to Taekwondo as I've come to understand it.

Family.

So, Master Luke, this Christmas present includes not just my essays for the five tenets - it includes an essay on Family, and I wanted to give it to you because it's only thanks to you that I know what family is.

Merry Christmas, Master Luke

All my love and respect,

Rey

 

-*-

_"Look at the stars,_

_Look how they shine for you,_

_And everything you do."_

(Yellow, Coldplay)

-*-

 

"...My point is, all of our family pictures are up on these walls, Hannah, because if it weren't for this Dojang we wouldn't be a family. And now you know how important Taekwondo is to us, and that's why your mother and I are so proud to have you training here."

Ben paused, and collected his thoughts.

"But Hannah," he sighed, "you can't just go around punching boys."

* * *

**Earlier That Day**

Rey loved her job. She truly did.

She had an office with no windows, a desk that only needed one paperback under one of its legs to stay stable, and a wheely chair that she liked to spin around in when no one was looking in from outside and when her guest chairs were blissfully empty. Best of all, she'd managed to convince the administration to let her bring in a coffee maker to reside on top of the faux-wood miniature bookshelf she had tucked in the corner. No more seeing other people in the faculty lounge if she didn't want to.

That all said, the hours sucked.  _Hard._  Waking earlier than six to get to the high school, and usually not being able to leave until two o'clock at the earliest usually meant that she was on two cups of coffee by the time she got home, with a third one in her mug to deal with the younglings for the Dojang's after school program.

Most of that was self-inflicted, though. The high school was the first to start and close for the district, but after-school meetings usually took up more time than was strictly required of her. Every year, she had a new batch of teenagers, each somehow metamorphosing from their previous pre-summer versions or just being strangers altogether. She'd been pushing the school to hire another counselor for a while now, but like any average district, administrative money was short and patience was shorter.

The  _snicker-snack_  of her flats as she practically skidded across the clean and tiled floor of the elementary school told her that at least her daughter's school wasn't running into the same budget problems Rey's was. She passed a long mosaic wall of construction paper pumpkins, handprint turkeys, poorly colored in holiday-themed drawings, and a cheerful and obnoxiously green selection of St. Patrick's day acrostics.

She stopped to stare at one that had snuck in a vulgar word for the "P" and absolutely did not snort because that would have been unprofessional and she was nothing if not professional within a school setting. She may have snickered though.

Moving on, she spotted her husband pacing outside one of the rooms. He lit up immediately on seeing her, and before he could even react Rey was practically flying into his arms, just like she had on that fateful night so many years ago.

"Oof," he said, or rather, gasped, wrapping his arms around her. He grinned down at her and murmured, "Hey there. Nice of you to drop in."

"Hey yourself," she said, perfectly happy with practically being lifted by him. Her husband was six foot three and she was going to take advantage of that every damn chance she got.

The faint smell of aftershave was in the air and that did things to her hindbrain that would have gotten her kicked off the premises if anyone had even an inkling. Ben's face, cultured with age and wisdom and experience, was still soft and the rawness of the feel rubbing against her cheek had her thinking things. Things she  _really_  couldn't address at their daughter's school.

He put her down, possibly a bit reluctantly, and she stepped back to take in the sight of him.

Ben Solo had never really mastered the art of looking confident in places he don't belong. Part of it was the shy awkward boy in him who he'd stopped ignoring and had, instead, accepted. He was much more comfortable being uncomfortable, if that made any sense. It felt more loose, more natural, per him. Not to say that he couldn't blend in, but his natural state was less rigid automaton and more carefully unconcerned.

He'd switched into one of his nicer outfits. A grey button-up that still seemed to strain against his shoulders with every swing of his arms, an expensive-looking tie that was so dark blue it almost looked black, and dark pants straight out of a business magazine.

Rey took this all in, cataloguing everything with the calm practical air of a woman well-used to her husband's reactions. Then, she looked down at her own attire - dark wash jeans and a floral print blouse that admittedly made her look younger than she actually was, and that was with the coffee stain from that morning. She'd long since swapped her buns for a looser style of soft waves (unless she was training students at the Dojang, of course).

"You're nervous," she commented. Her response was met with an eye roll, though he noticeably didn't deny it.

"Not nervous exactly," Ben muttered. He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against a spot on the wall, covering a handy laminated poster dictating the best ways to make friends, replete with comic sans font and anthropomorphic office supplies. "It's just...this has never happened before."

"What? A parent teacher conference?"

"Don't be glib," Ben chided without any heat. "You know what I mean. Hannah getting in trouble? This is a first for me. I mean, usually she's an angel."

This time Rey  _did_  snort, and she didn't even bother to keep it ladylike.

"Okay, okay," Ben conceded, raising his hand to forestall whatever she was going to say. "She's gotten into scrapes and the teachers have called us once or twice but that's just normal kid stuff. It's never been serious enough to get us called in to meet with them  _that day_."

"Oh Ben," Rey said, and really that just said it all.  _Oh Ben._  But her husband hadn't developed telepathy just yet so, seeing the curious look on his face, she decided to elucidate him. "You realize this is perfectly normal, right?"

"I mean, I do, yeah, but-" he bit his lip, before looking up at her, "-I'm still nervous. From the sounds of it, the teacher was pretty ticked. I just don't want her to think we let Hannah get into trouble without repercussions. Worse, though, I'm worried about the kid."

It was then that a third, unexpected voice, spoke up. "Oh goodie, now there are two of them."

Rey and Ben looked to the side to see Finn and Poe approaching, the latter dressed incredibly casually in his T-shirt and jeans combo, while the former was much like Ben and had decided to wear something more "acceptable".

"Me and Finn were wondering if you two were going to be here, too," Poe said. He'd lost some of his energy over the years as the laws of thermodynamics practically demanded, but he'd gained an equally proportional amount of smile lines correspondingly. "And he's also fretting over what happened."

Finn's wry look bypassed his husband entirely and he just waved at Ben and Rey. "Hey guys. Don't mind him, just running his mouth again. I assume you're both used to that by now."

"You wound me, love," Poe cried out dramatically, holding a hand to his heart and a pearly white smile so bright it could have blinded her.

"Excuse me," interrupted another voice, "but are you the parents of Hannah Solo and Rowan Dameron?"

Everyone turned to look at the classroom door, which had just cracked open, revealing a woman a shade under Rey's height and with the kind of face that hid her actual age because of how boring she looked.

Working around, with, in spite of, and because of, teachers had most certainly not inured Rey to their appearances and personalities. If anything, the voice in her head that liked to pitch in whenever she saw a particularly difficult one liked to treat it as a stand-up comedy hour. Most teachers were wonderfully pleasant, of course - putting their hearts and souls into the job, and genuinely caring about the kids they taught...but some  _weren't_ like that, and she didn't have a great feeling about the woman in front of them.

But because Rey was nothing if not the consummate professional on school grounds and because she didn't necessarily want to cause more trouble for Hannah, she ignored the thoughts in her head, put on her sunniest smile, and extended a hand, saying, "Hello, I don't think we've met. I'm Rey and this is my husband Ben. We're Hannah's parents. Who might you be?"

The woman looked her up, looked her down, deigned to release what was probably a sigh via a slight flare of her nostrils, and then looked at Ben and said, "Please come in."

She retreated from the doorway, and Rey counted the woman lucky that Rey hadn't turned her immediate frowned upside down by turning her extended hand up into flipping the woman the bird. It was a quick impulse, and she swallowed it with years of practice of dealing with bureaucratic crap in the public education system.

"Rude," Finn grumbled, prompting a nod from Poe.

Ben, for his part, had gone from worried to severely unamused very quickly.

The classroom was just like any other elementary school classroom Rey had seen over the years. This one leaned toward the older side of the spectrum, with fewer cartoonishly colored posters and more informational pieces around the room. The desks, for example, weren't grouped up together, but instead were in the rows and columns that would be the students' standard for years to come.

The woman was already sitting behind a desk, gesturing for Rey and her friends to sit. They did so without a word, but that didn't mean Rey wasn't performing her own examination of the woman in front of her.

Blonde-ish gray, or grayish blonde hair. Glasses that practically sank into the bridge of her nose, with frames that curved wickedly where the legs met the lens. Age lines, frown lines, and a stare that might have been warm once twenty years ago. She had a small pinched mouth, and seemed to stuck with a perpetual look of someone who'd swallowed something bitter.

"Excuse me, I don't think we caught it, but what's your name?" Rey said, because no one else was saying anything, and she was really doing her best not to dislike this woman right off the bat. She'd dealt with enough teachers to know that even if they weren't approachable at first glance, most were absolute sweethearts once you got to know them.

The woman, who'd been moving papers on the desk without any interest looked up and her eyes slid right off of Rey's. Finally she seemed to find what she was looking for and set it on top of the small stack. "You can call me Mrs. Dullart."

Poe didn't even bother with acknowledging the pronunciation. "Dullard?"

"No," Dullart corrected immediately. "Dullart. The 'T' is silent. It's French."

Finn, who'd taken French throughout college, just coughed, unconvinced.

Rey smiled at her friends' antics. She grabbed Ben's hand on her left, and he shot her a grateful look. Of them all, Ben looked the most outwardly calm of them all, but she could feel the twinge of agitation from him, just by virtue of sitting next to him. Ben was an expressive man, even when calm, and Rey considered herself well-versed in understanding his subliminal signals.

"Anyways," Dullart continued, unabated. "I called you here because there's been an...incident."

The woman said that like how one might refer to trout that'd been left out in the sun too long. Another checkmark against her, and Rey had to fight not to drop the pleasant but dull look from her face as she listened to Dullart speak.

"Earlier today I was notified about two children being sent the infirmary after an altercation in your children were involved in during recess."

Oh hell, Ben just froze. She was right there with him, too. Whatever etiquette they were observing was about to be tossed right out the window if this woman didn't explain  _right the fuck now-_

"Your children were the ones who sent them there," Dullart said flatly. "One of the children eventually had to be sent out to the hospital because the parents were understandably panicked regarding the child's health after the school nurse determined he had a broken nose. The other sustained a few bruises plus a bite mark."

"Hold on," Finn said, rapping his knuckles against the wood to interrupt the steady drone of Dullart's dictation. "Rowan? Our little Rowan? Small, shy, looks like a soft teddy bear who just had his ice cream melt in the sun... _he_  beat a kid up?"

Rey was right there with him in his disbelief. Rowan was a sweetie, the most soft-spoken, little sprout who went along with whatever mad plan Hannah came up with to entertain them simply because it was easier than arguing with her and because it'd put a smile on her face. She'd once seen him cry because he thought his pet plant wasn't getting enough sunlight when it was raining. Admittedly, that'd been when he was five and still a little new to living with Poe and Finn, but he was bright, even-tempered, and above all, very sweet.

Dullart flared her nostrils.  _Uh-oh_. That was grumpy teacher talk for  _How dare!_

"He did not, as you say, 'beat a kid up'," the woman corrected, and Rey could measure how annoyed she was based on the perfect and deliberate way she enunciated every syllable, "He bit and tackled another student, involving himself in an altercation that he  _should_  have had the knowledge to remove himself from."

"So there was already a fight going on?" Poe asked, leaning forward in his seat. His smile was genial and genuine and would have looked at home on a shark. Poe did not like it when people messed with his kid.

"That's where Hannah  _Solo_  comes in," Dullar said. Rey had to wonder at the intention in using her child's last name. "Per reports, she chose to deliberately involve herself in a nonviolent situation and decided to turn it so. All parties agree that she was the main instigator. She was - in point of fact -  _proud_ to admit that she punched first."

Rey couldn't help but snort. Of  _course_ her daughter would be proud of that. Judging by the faster-than-a-bullet blink sent her way from Poe, he too, found that amusing.

Ben, though, wasn't satisfied. He'd long since lost his awkwardness from sitting in the uncomfortable chair, in the uncomfortable room, in front of this frankly uncomfortable person, and was now sitting upright, arms crossed. It was, in fact, the same blank expression he wore when he was doing promotion examinations.

"If it was nonviolent, what sort of situation was it?" he asked, tilting his head curiously. "I somehow doubt that our children would have involved themselves in this...situation...if it weren't avoidable."

Dullart blinked and seemed to repeat the words back to herself before looking up from the piece of paper in front of her to meet his eyes. Something, probably evolutionary instinct, stilled her, and Rey wondered how it was people forgot about Ben in the first place. He wasn't being threatening, because there was no way Ben would ever threaten anyone without due cause, but he was making himself known in the way only he knew how, with the calm assurance of a man who knew the difference between right and wrong because he'd lived on both sides.

"It was a dispute," the woman said eventually. "Playground things. They were inconsequential in light of-"

It was Rey's turn to intervene. Drawing the woman's stare, Rey said, "Often, what we think of as unimportant things are anything but that in the eyes of children, Mrs. Dullart." She made sure to keep her tone lofty and level and then asked, "Did you think to ask  _why_ our children were fighting these students?"

"We have a zero-tolerance policy on violence.  _Your_  children turned a situation violent, and their reasoning for doing so is inconsequential" Dullart retorted. She wasn't shouting, but she seemed to realize the mistake in gathering four parents into a room (without backup) to tell them their children were anything less than perfect.

"Inconsequential?" Rey hummed, drawing the noise out if only to see the woman's reaction. "So, you  _didn't_  ask, then?"

Dullart didn't glare at Rey, but that was probably the woman's face was stuck in the kind of corpse-like rictus it would take gigajoules of energy to change. She did, however, lean back in her chair just a smidge.

"No, we didn't, Mrs. Solo. We were too busy being concerned with the fact that your daughter found it acceptable to break a boy's nose," the woman said, a tad frostily.

"I understand that," Rey replied in kind. A soft voice with a strong soul was the greatest defense she'd ever learned from Taekwondo. "However, I think we'd all prefer to get the full picture. Where are our children, Mrs. Dullart?"

Dullart's pinched mouth seemed to pinch inwards even further, and her eyes narrowed at Rey. Rey could already see herself being written off as an unreasonable parent in this woman's eyes, which was just as well because Rey had long since admitted she could be quite biased when it came to her own daughter.

But really, punishing the children without even knowing why? She had to deal with enough of this crap in her job and she didn't need nor want Hannah thinking that no one would listen to her. Rey knew what kind of end that could lead to. Hell, she'd lived part of it.

Then in contrast to every expectation built up to now, the stone cracked and the Dullart's face changed _._  Her previously taut expression loosened as her mouth widened and formed a shape Rey hadn't thought possible. Cheeks were pulled wide apart as a grin that looked as old as regulation appeared and Dullart  _laughed_.

Neither Rey nor any one else seemed to know what to do, and they were all left there staring nonplussed at the suddenly not-quite-but-very-close-to cackling woman.

"I just realized where I knew your name from," the woman said, eventually taking her glasses off and gently rubbing the bridge of her nose. " _Oh,_  you're the guidance counselor up at the high school, aren't you? Amilyn Holdo's protege?"

Rey blinked. "I...yes."

"Thought so." Dullart seemed restore years to her complexion with that admission. "I haven't seen her in years, but she liked to talk about you. Kept raving about how all the kids liked her former favorite student."

Amilyn had retired years ago, around when Rey had turned thirty, and she'd done so proud of accomplishing what many educators had strived to do - leaving their district a better place than when they'd started. She and Luke had been enjoying their married, retired life for years now.

"Her favorite student?" Rey found herself smiling, thinking fondly of the woman. She looked to Ben and stuck her tongue out at him. "Guess we finally know who that is, huh?"

Ben scoffed, and rolled his eyes playfully, but didn't say anything.

"Sorry about the difficulty," Dullart said, still on track with this one-eighty in personality. "I just...I remember having to deal with another  _Solo_  child quite a few years ago. I remember it causing me and my coworkers a lot of trouble at the time. Quite a nasty business, really. Fights every week, a lot of meetings with his angry parents. I suppose the name just brought up some old memories."

She looked away, apparently reminiscing about times that certainly didn't sound good, and thankfully, she either didn't notice or didn't care that Ben had basically all but stopped breathing, and had gone rigid in his seat.

"Your children got into a fight," Dullart repeated out loud, seemingly to herself. "You understand that regardless of the circumstances, they'll be suspended from the school for a week, correct?"

Which was basically the woman saying that whatever happened, regardless of cause or reasoning, the school wasn't culpable in any way. It was a politician's answer, and despite the woman's clear and newfound warmth towards Rey, it exemplified how broken the system still was.

Rey made to speak up and voice exactly what she thought of that, but Ben snatched her hand and squeezed, signalling her to let him talk now.

"We know," Ben said, nodding gracefully. "We're aware of the school's zero tolerance policy. We just think it might prove enlightening to all of us if we could hear it from their point of view."

The woman shook her head at the amusing notion, but stood up nonetheless. She exited the room through the connecting door between classrooms. While she was gone, Poe turned to Rey and offered her a fistbump.

"Betcha' anything one of those two was in trouble and they just got all adorably protective," he said. "Those two aren't the type to fight for no reason."

Rey considered the outstretched limb, waiting for her to return the fistbump. "You realize of course that 'adorably protective' basically resulted in a disciplinary meeting right? That this isn't anything like a 'Congratulations' but more of a 'Your kids are idiots'?"

"Of course they're idiots," Poe shot back. "They're ten. They're  _smart_  idiots, but it's not like most people don't grow out of that eventually."

"No offense Poe," Rey said, finally meeting his fistbump with her own. "But did  _you_  ever?"

"I married this guy, didn't I?" Poe said, grabbing his husband's left hand and pointing to the gold band on Finn's ring finger. "That was pretty smart. And we managed to adopt Rowan didn't we? Best decisions we ever made."

Finn laughed, leaning forward to look past Poe and said, "Hey Ben, you ever get tired of being the only sane person in the marriage? I know I do."

"You should probably ask me that when my wife's not in the room, buddy," Ben said, on seeing the dangerous look Rey shot him. "My answer'll probably be different then."

"Hey!"

Ben let out a soft laugh, murmuring, "Oh, you know I love you."

She quirked an eyebrow, but forgave him instantly and smiled sweetly, leaning over for a kiss, just as the door behind the desks opened once more.

"Ewww," Hannah groaned, on her first step into the room. "I don't want to see that!"

Rey smirked and pulled away from Ben, leaving him with a curl of satisfaction to his lips. "Sorry sweetie," Rey teased, "But uh, how  _exactly_  do you think you got here?"

Hannah pretended to retch, and Ben turned an amusing shade of pink. Adorable.

Chuckling, Rey took in the sight of her daughter.

She had long brown hair that reached down to her shoulders and a band-aid on the underside of her chin. Her shirt, a formerly red thing with a quote from one of her favorite shows was ruined, with more dirt than fabric on her now, despite someone obviously trying to clean it. Her jeans had ripped too, and Rey could make out more band-aids on her knees. She had a round face, a dimple when she smiled (which was a lot) and the kind of naturally wicked gleam in her eyes that used to drive every babysitter crazy.

Rey loved her, every bit about her, and every bit that was to be her.

Rowan trudged in right behind her, shoulders hunched as if trying to make himself smaller. He was a naturally skittish boy by nature with soft tangled black hair and freckles. Whether as a result of being partially raised in the system or just as a result of the timing of growth spurts, he was actually a good deal shorter than Hannah, who was looking like she was going to inherit Ben's genetics in that department.

This made the two of them the interesting pair, with him proving to be the sole (and often ignored) voice of caution and reason between the two, while Hannah was the living spitfire who seemed to thrive on moving as much as possible, and often dragged Rowan along for the ride because he knew when to tell her if something had gone too far.

"Hey there bud," Poe cooed softly, melting in place and casting his caustic humor aside for the sake of his son.

Rowan blushed and looked up from the ground. "Uh...hey dad and um...dad."

Dullart came in behind them, closing the door. She gestured for the kids to join their parents, and both Hannah and Rowan darted forward, joining their respective parents in the middle. Rey and Ben greeted Hannah with a warm hug and kisses that she tried to protest, while Rowan, still a little touch shy, was content to let both of his dads scoot their seats closer to him.

"We heard about what happened," Rey said, addressing Hannah directly. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She had nothing against Dullart, technically, but the woman was still a little too...technical for Rey's taste. It was the sign of a good administrator but maybe one who'd lost touch with the fact that these were people, and more importantly,  _children_  she was responsible for.

Finn repeated the same question to Rowan, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the boy flinch.

Dullart wasn't content to just wait for an answer though.

"Per the reports from the schoolyard supervisors," she said, picking up a pink slip from the stack she had in front of her, "It was started when Hannah here interrupted a game that Rowan and a few others were playing-"

"It wasn't a game!" Hannah yelled, right in Rey's ear. She hid the wince, and didn't let go of her daughter, who was sweaty and a little pale and holding on to them like a lifeline. "They were making fun of Ro! Calling him names!"

"Be that as it may, young lady," Dullart said, talking right past Hannah, "What you did was wrong. We never hit another person, no matter what. You should have gone and gotten a teacher and then we could have handled it." Her face took on a somewhat more compassionate feel. "I understand that because you've been practicing Karate-"

"Taekwondo," all six of them corrected.

"Okay,  _Taekwondo_...-you feel like you can jump in and stop this, but that is not right. Hurting someone else because it's the easiest-"

"They were making fun of his parents!" Hannah shouted, effectively silencing the woman. "They were making fun of Uncle Poe and Uncle Finn!" Her young face twisted with the injustice of it all. "They- they were saying really mean things about them! Calling them- them- _names_ ," her voice broke. Then she added, with righteously-empowered fury, "That's  _wrong!"_

Despite suspecting what the root cause of the whole thing situation, hearing confirmation didn't stop Rey from sharing in the irate roar in her veins. She had better control of it, especially after years of helping so many teenages with their own problems or at least pointing them in the right direction, and she was able to recognize the feeling in her instead of letting it take over.

"They were making Ro cry," Hannah finished, and  _oh_ , the poor kid, those were tears in her eyes. Angry fusillade streaming from a face too young to have to deal with this kind of quiet evil. "They were making Ro cry, and I wanted them to stop!"

Dullart, at least, looked ashen.

She looked from the child to Rowan, who was now holding tight on to his parents as if he were afraid of losing them to the taunts and jeers of children taller, and scarier than he.

"Is this true?" she said, voice barely above a whisper.

Rowan flinched again, but, surprisingly, he started speaking. Poe had taken to rubbing his child's back soothingly, in a specific pattern of circles and oblongs; a little trick he'd picked up in his years as a physical therapist.

"It's true," he said. "The others were saying...bad things." He closed his eyes and bit his lip. Rey could see that both he and Hannah had been crying. "When Hannah came in and stopped them, they tried to go after her. They pushed her down and- and- that's when I jumped on the closest one."

"You were yelling really loudly," Hannah pointed out, ever the helpful reminder. "Kinda' sounded like the old monkey bars when they go  _screeeeee-_ "

Rey patted her daughter's hand, quieting her. "I think we get the point, sweetie." She looked to Mrs. Dullart, "I take it none of the boys were detained?"

The woman at least had the grace to look ashamed. "Beyond the two who were injured? No."

Rey knew better than to ask whether the other students would also be suspended. She'd just get a very unhelpful and vague answer along the lines indicating that the school would handle it. She could hazard a guess and say that the two boys who'd been clearly involved would also be punished, but that was the zero tolerance policy at work.

"I think," Ben said at last, speaking up, "that things have become a lot clearer now."

Credit where credit was due, Dullart recovered fast. She didn't flinch as she looked at Ben. There was however, a strain to her face that said she was deliberately trying not to look at Finn and Poe due to the sheer blunder at dismissing the issue earlier.

"I originally called you here to discuss these tendencies and their training," Dullart admitted. She looked pained as she then said, "I originally thought this to be a case of children thinking they could take advantage of their knowledge with other children, but...I don't think we need to discuss that now. We may have had a misunderstanding of the situation, though, per school policy, the suspensions still stand."

Right, she couldn't explicitly say that she was wrong because that would be the same as an admission of guilt and responsibility of the school's for the fact that the fight even happened in the first place. It bothered Rey a lot, that liability got in the way of people being honest with each other, but she supposed that was part of what she tried to rectify in her job. At the very least, Rey knew that helping kids accept and acknowledge where their responsibilities lay was a noble goal.

A disgruntled pout was all Hannah had to say to Dullart. She crossed her arms under her armpits and made a face at the woman.

Rey could admit, throwing the first punch was wrong, but that still didn't meant she was going to let Hannah think she was entirely at fault for the situation.

"Are we done here, then?" Rey sighed, glancing to the woman.

She nodded. "You can take them home today and they'll be suspended for the next week."

The three other parents in the room grumbled a little...but not Rey.

Hey Hannah?" Rey said, grabbing her daughter's attention.

"Mmm? Yeah, mom?"

Rey steered her daughter in Rowan's direction. The young man was beet red from his little speech but Rey could practically see the beaming pride both Poe and Finn were showering him with. Poor Ro looked like he didn't know what to do with himself.

"You want to get ice-cream after this? Maybe we can ask Ro and your Uncles to join us?"

Rey didn't have to be looking in their direction to know that Ben had silenced Dullart with just his protective-dad stare.

* * *

" _But Hannah," he sighed, "you can't just go around punching boys."_

" _Dad,_ " Hannah groaned. "I thought I wasn't in trouble."

Ben shook his head, even as he came around the desk and kneeled in front of his daughter. She was tall for her age, and but he knew she would always be his little girl, even if he stopped calling her that and let her make all her own mistakes.

But that didn't mean he wasn't going to be there to help every step of the way.

"It's not a matter of being in trouble, kid," Ben deflected. "It's a matter of understanding."

"I understand though," Hannah said, crossing her arms and glaring at him. "I shouldn't get angry and I shouldn't punch people in the face, even if they deserve it!"

He suppressed the smile at her pouting. He didn't miss the convenient wording loophole she thought she'd hidden. More than once had Hannah taken advantage of technical wording in her promises and dealings, but this wasn't one she could have that kind of leeway with.

The truth was, he was scared. So scared he'd mess this up, because he'd been in this conversation before - thirty years ago and on the other side of it.

"Actually, kid, you probably shouldn't punch people  _anywhere_. And I'm not saying you shouldn't get angry," Ben soothed, reaching up to tuck a stray strand behind her ear. "Getting angry is okay."

"It is?" she asked, and it sounded like such a revelation to her that it broke his heart for how painfully familiar the feeling was. She grimaced as she prepared the next question, "Even if I hurt people? I know punching him was wrong but he was wrong too."

She looked up at him with eyes just like his and Ben had to force himself not to blink. "Dad, what do I do? I got so  _mad_ , and- and-"

He'd once thought he'd be unprepared for this moment. That the ground would fall away and he'd be sent careening through a universe of epic mistakes and fuck-ups and that, amidst galaxies of innumerable possible responses he'd never find it in himself to choose the right one. In the past, he'd even had nightmares where his words and actions would somehow set off a chain reaction of events that would forever ruin his daughter's life, just in the way his had almost been.

None of those old fears or worries crossed his mind when he answered her.

"You accept your anger," Ben told her.

"What?" She looked bewildered.

Ben licked his lips and started talking. "Anger is normal, kid. It's not scary or bad or wrong to feel it, especially when someone's doing something wrong, like those boys were today. What's important is that we don't let anger  _control_  us." He took her gently by the shoulders, not harshly, but with loving care. "If anyone ever tells you you're wrong for being angry, don't listen to them. Your feelings are yours, Hannah, and anyone ever tells you you're wrong for having them, ignore them. Your feelings - whatever they are - are  _yours_ , and you're allowed to feel them."

She scrunched up her face, pondering. "So me getting mad at those boys for hurting Ro was okay?"

Dangerous territory there, but he braved it nonetheless. "Yes, but can you tell me one thing we did there that wasn't?"

_We._  He wondered if she noticed that word choice.

"Punching them?" she ventured.

"I'm not saying fighting is always the wrong choice," Ben admitted, "Someday you might come across stuff that makes you so mad you're going to want to do nothing but punch something." He sighed. "But it's important that you don't jump to that first. There's almost always another option, and it's important that you look for it  _before_  settling on fighting."

Hannah seemed to consider it for a moment before nodding. "Okay."

"Okay?"

She nodded again, surer this time. "Okay."

"Part of being in Taekwondo is knowing when to punch and when not to, kid," Ben said, and he reached up and ruffled her hair, drawing a giggle from her. "And I want to help you, Hannah, because someone helped me with that, and I think it's important to learn."

"But what if I get in trouble again? One of the teachers...she said I was trouble."

That fear, that childlike, innocent, pervasive fear of being forever blemished as something  _Other_  and  _Wrong_  clung to those words like nightmares in the shadows. It was his daughter once again seeking validation, seeking assurance that everything was still alright with the world, especially after what was arguably the worst day of her life.

"Do you think that's true, Hannah?"

"Well, no but," Hannah looked down at the ground, "what if I am?"

"I think you're just a very caring girl," Ben assuaged, "but I also think that there's a difference between causing trouble because you feel like it, and causing trouble because you think it's what's right. I think that it's important we tell the difference, no?"

She wrinkled her nose. "You're doing that thing again. You keep talking like Grandpa."

"Grandpa's a smart man."

"I don't want to be a bad person dad," she said, looking down. "I don't want to be  _trouble."_

He smiled softly down at her. "I know. Your mother and I don't think you are. And even if you were..."

She looked up, curious and honest and with such a pure lightness to her expression it still took his breath away even after all these years.

"Then you'll be my bad, trouble-causing little shrimp!" Ben declared, suddenly grabbing her lifting her and lugging her over his shoulder in one singular motion. Hannah let out an ear-piercing shriek that quickly devolved into laughter that she'd forever deny making.

"Dad!" she said, struggling futilely against his hands, "Put me down! Put me down!"

As he stepped out into the dojang, his hands quaked suddenly and Ben took the hint from his own body and put her down gently, hands on her hips as she'd crossed her arms and was glaring at him.

Hah. It looked like it was getting a bit too difficult to pick her up like that, especially when she tried to wriggle away. His intense years of stress and damage under Snoke and the subsequent time afterwards had caught up, and eventually, a time would come when his hands wouldn't be much good for punching anymore.

Ben was fine with that because he knew, without consulting anyone, that they would forever be good for cupping his wife's face as he kissed her or for ruffling his mischievous daughter's hair when she needed a reminder of which of them was taller in the family.

"All done?" Rey asked, stepping in from the outside. She'd showered since the three of them had gotten home, while Ben had talked with Hannah alone per his request. The fresh scent of her lavender shampoo wafted around her. "Your dad talk to you about stuff?"

"He did," Hannah beamed, before a thoughtful look overtook her. "But I feel bad about Ro. He didn't want to get in trouble and I kinda' feel bad for doing that, but I didn't know he'd get involved."

Ben and Rey shared a look, debating who should take care of this particular moment of introspection. It was agreed upon through mutual silence, that it should be both of them.

"Listen, kid," Ben said, crouching down to eye level with Hannah once more. She was still in her dirtied clothing from earlier and she looked exhausted. "One thing you need to understand? Rowan is family."

Hannah looked at him like he'd just announced the newest line of paperclips: bored and unsurprised. "Well, yeah, he's Ro."

"I think what your father's trying to say is that it's always okay to fight for our family. Okay, Hannah? Try not getting into a physical fight if you can." Rey crossed the space and wrapped her arms around the girl from behind. "But if it's necessary, and you're defending someone you love, and you know, in your heart, that you're doing the right thing..."

Rey's hazel eyes met Ben's, and he remembered the night she'd decided to come for him when he'd thought himself lost. The night that changed everything.

Rey winked and he saw her lean down and whisper into Hannah's ear, "Well, then make sure you hit really,  _really_  hard."

Hannah giggled.

Oh, yeah, no family resemblance there.  _None_ , whatsoever.

Ben could only shake his head and laugh.

* * *

After freshening up upstairs it was already dinner time, and neither Ben nor Rey felt like cooking that night. He'd already cancelled classes after asking Phasma to come take over for the after school program, and he just really wasn't in the mood to teach anyone anything else that night.

So, feeling lazy but satisfied with their performance as functional adults and parents, Ben and Rey decided that after the day they'd all had they could use a break. They crossed the street and slipped into the diner during the late dinner rush. Fortunately, or through simple providence of parental lethargy, Finn and Poe were already there.

"Oi!" Poe said, raising a hand, completely missing the annoyed look a passing by waitress shot at him for his volume. "Over here! We'll push some tables together."

Though it was technically a 'rush', there was plenty of space available. Maz had sold the place years earlier, and the new owners had done some redecorating, sprucing up certain things and modernizing some of the appliances. The new owner was friendly to Ben and Rey, even if they seemed perpetually bemused by the large groups they tended to attract, but they always ordered plenty of food and never bothered the other customers. Even though Maz still didn't technically own the place, the diner still felt a little like home.

They pushed some spare tables together and as soon as they'd done that, Hannah slipped into the seat next to Rowan, reaching over and giving him one of those patented child hugs that involved wrapping her arms around him fully and demanding some hug in return lest she squeeze the air out of him.

"Ro!" Hannah said, as if she hadn't seen him a few hours prior. "We're not in trouble!"

"Hi Hannah," Rowan grinned, without missing a beat and looking far calmer amidst a crowded restaurant now that his best friend threatened to choke him with physical affection. "Um. Hi Aunt Rey, Uncle Ben."

Rey smiled kindly down at the boy, suppressing the instinctive urge to grab a camera. Little Rowan was camera shy and he really didn't like being put on the spot, but Hannah usually brought out some spark in him that she wholeheartedly approved of (at least in private). Didn't mean she didn't still do a double-take whenever she heard the word 'Aunt' attached to her name though.

"Evening Rowan," Rey said instead, sitting opposite him and smiling at his parents. "Everything go okay afterwards?"

She directed the question to Finn and Poe, the first of whom had a kind of strained affectionate look that looked like it was familiar to him, and the latter who only grinned and put a proud hand on his son's shoulder.

"Just peachy," Poe said. Rowan blushed and looked down at the table, not meeting anyone's eyes. "Honestly, if ever there's a reason to find out your kid got in trouble, I'd say that's a pretty good one."

"M'sorry, dad," Rowan muttered, eyes shadowing as his voice lowered. "I just couldn't let them hurt Hannah."

"And we're happy you jumped in when you did," Finn reassured. He spoke as if it was from experience. "I know those boys were scary and you probably wanted them to stop, but regardless of how it ended up, I'm happy you helped your friend, Rowan. We're not angry with you for that."

"Thanks, dad."

It was then that Hannah decided to triple the amount of strength she was putting in her hug, or at least it seemed so, because Rowan turned an interesting shade of crimson as she hummed with effort. Finally, her daughter released the poor boy, and she sat back, suddenly glaring at him.

"Don't do that again," she said, a touch imperiously. "You could have gotten hurt."

Rowan stared back at her, bewildered. "But you could have, too."

"That's different!" Hannah said, wildly gesticulating to make a point but not explaining different  _how_. "You shouldn't fight. I should do that, not you."

"Uh, Hannah, we're the same rank."

The poor kid just seemed terribly confused by her argument.

Hannah shook her head. "That doesn't matter."

Still lost, Rowan looked at each of the adults in turn for guidance. Rey was trying not laugh too much, while Poe just offered his perpetual grin that really said  _You're on your own, kid_. Finn rubbed his eyes and muttering something about "troublemaking Solos" while Ben had donned his placid facade that he used to hide his amusement in public.

"It's my job as your best friend to keep you safe," Hannah continued, completely ignorant to the collective amusement around her. "So you should let me, okay?"

"Doesn't that mean I should do the same, then?" Rowan asked, the picture of innocence. "I mean, you're my best friend too. And you're the one always getting hurt because you don't wait up for me."

It was, funnily enough, true. It wasn't uncommon for Hannah to scrape her knees or fall down a lot when she and Rowan were left to their own devices. A bit too much energy in a bit too small a body, but regardless Rowan usually came out faring a lot better than her, even though they were technically doing the same things.

Rey still remembered the time she'd come home to find they'd turned the dining room table on its side and had built a blanket fort via the splintery legs and underside. They'd been seven then, and their babysitter had fallen asleep on the couch, ingenuous of the fact that Hannah had been perfecting the  _faking sleep_  trick to get them to let their guard down.

Hannah seemed to give careful thought to Rowan's words before she decided to end the argument by saying, "Fine, but you owe me a cookie. I was worried about you, y'know."

Rowan blinked, opened his mouth as if to argue, but seemed to think better of it and instead just looked down at where she'd grabbed his hand beneath the table. His blush still hadn't receded and it looked like it wasn't going anywhere.

_Adorable._

They ordered food then, and the kids asked to move to their own table so they could leave the boring adults by themselves (Hannah's words, not Rowan's) and after a bit of wrangling they separated the tables by a couple of inches, further proving to be nuisances and garnering another set of tired looks from the staff. They let Hannah and Rowan sit 'alone' at that table, leaving Rey and her friends to discuss things like adults.

"Ben, Rey, don't get me wrong, I love Hannah like my own kid, but sometimes I'm glad she's  _not_  my own kid," Poe said quietly, starting things off with gossip because  _of course_  adults weren't any better than children. "She's a right terror sometimes."

"What did you say, Uncle Poe?" Hannah said, her ears pricking at the sound of her voice.

He snorted. "I said you're a terror and a menace, Hannah and that you should keep it up because your dad doesn't smile often enough."

A brilliant megawatt smile that she most definitely did not learn from Rey or Ben lit up their daughter's face. "Okay!" she said, and then turned back to her super-secret discussion with Rowan.

"You know Finn," Ben drawled, "when we agreed to let you guys take over babysitting once in a while all those years ago it was contingent on you reigning in your husband. I didn't want any bit of his stupid passing down to my kid."

The look Finn shot Ben would have been enough to dry a lake. "You seem to think I haven't been doing that."

"Mmmm. Another bottle of wine for your birthday to help cope then?"

"Make it two," Finn readily agreed, "and I'll try and convince him not to take them camping."

Rey couldn't help but look at her long-time friend askance. "Do you even know how to camp?"

"That's part of the experience isn't it?" Poe responded instantly. She wasn't reassured in the slightest, no matter how intentionally reassuring he tried to sound. "You're invited too, Ben. I figure you've been stuck in the city long enough. Rey, I know you won't go anywhere without your other half and Finn, you're coming anyways."

"Under protest," Finn added, raising a glass and downing its contents as if it were anything approaching alcoholic. It wasn't, but the point was made.

"Kicking and screaming, you mean," Rey said, rolling her eyes. "Finn, I love you and all, but remember when you got lost driving Rowan back from his soccer game and you called me saying you didn't know where you were because your phone didn't have signal there? You were babbling on about all these trees and the sounds and the only reason you kept it together is because Rowan was right there in the car with you."

Finn winced, but seemed to smile a little nonetheless. "I don't like dark roads with no light or sounds around me okay? It's a perfectly normal fear to have. We have cities for a reason."

"I don't think you have any right to be casting stones here, honey," Ben said, his voice light and gaining that teasing edge he often had when among friends, "Remember when Hannah was convinced there was something in her closet, and it turned out there actually was?"

Rey felt her cheeks become hot and she ignored the looks her friends were shooting her. That had not been her best moment. "Okay, but to be fair, I wasn't expecting us to find another cat in her closet, and it was dark so I definitely couldn't see him there either."

"Wait," Poe said, holding up a hand, "are you talking about how you guys got Beebee?"

"Beebee the Ninth," Rey corrected drolly. "Apparently Beebee was the eighth in his line of succession for his throne, and this one's his heir. According to Hannah."

"That...doesn't work that way," Finn tentatively put forward.

"Tell that to her." She hooked a thumb at her rambunctious, tornado of a child who was talking at rapidfire pace with Rowan about some aspect of their favorite show, with pointed, thoughtful interspersions from the boy continuing the conversation whenever it started lagging.

"I miss Beebee," Ben mused, looking wistful and amused. "He was the only sane one in the house besides me."

There was more than just trace mirth in his voice as he said that, Rey could tell. Despite that one winter day so long ago, Beebee had proven to be a faithful companion and great lap warmer when they moved in to apartment above the Dojang. Rey had more than once come home to find Ben snoozing on the couch, Hannah sleeping on his chest, with Beebee right beside them, keeping careful vigil over his chosen people.

"Beebee the Ninth's a menace," Rey said bluntly, drawing Ben out of his thoughts. "He keeps tripping me up and I swear he's stealing all the pens and stashing them somewhere. You watch, someday we're going to retire and move out of the Dojang and find a million pens hidden in the back of a closet."

"Ah," Poe nodded, accepting this at face value. He and Finn visited often enough to need no proof. "Well, that's why they get along with him, right?" He pointed to their kids. "All three of them are little nuts?"

"You could say that," Ben said at last, trying and failing to hide his rumbling chuckles. "I wasn't kidding when I said I'm the only sane one left. He laughed, and glanced over at Rey. "Remember the surprise party we tried to throw for Hannah a few years ago?"

"Oh my god, shut up," Rey groaned, letting her head fall into her hands.

"She just started  _crying_ ," Ben chuckled, "because her mom scared her and her instinct was to hit the closest person next to her. Which, as it turned out, was me."

Finn chuckled and couldn't resist chiming in, "Oh, right,  _that's_ why you didn't have any more kids!"

They laughed, and Rey tried to muster up some indignation on her own behalf, but she was tired and happy and her kid was there, smiling, shining bright, and really it was hard to feel anything other than content when she had a wonderfully snarky husband and a delightfully wild girl like Hannah in her life.

"So, speaking of," Poe said, this time in a hush, and if he was trying to be circumspect he was failing spectacularly, "we still on for this weekend?"

"I'm going to need to rearrange my schedule a little bit," Ben said frowning. "The suspension kind of made things a little difficult for us, timing-wise, but otherwise? Yeah, we're still good. Feel free to leave Rowan with us during the days they're suspended if you both need to work. I can check in on them between classes, and I'll be right downstairs."

"Thanks," Finn said, and he really did look grateful. "We can pick them up Friday for a sleepover so you guys can get things ready without her there...sound okay?"

Ben nodded. "Much appreciated," he said, as if this were just a business transaction and not another (hopefully not disastrous) birthday party.

He shot Rey a meaningful look. "And this time we'll be sure not to jump out from behind the door while it's still dark. Just flicking the lights on should be enough."

Rey muttered something about sassy Solos and but didn't opine her thoughts on the matter.

* * *

They spent the week in relative peace, with 'relative' being the key word. There was only so much peace Hannah could put up with after all, before she decided to go and pursue something more interesting. Luckily Ben was never far and he only caught Hannah and Rowan pilfering stuff from the fridge once during his routine trips he would take upstairs to check on them.

The two had been trying to make brownies, apparently, but even by the time Rey got home, the kitchen still looked like a nightmarish science experiment gone wrong.

Come Friday, Rey found herself shipping the two off in Finn's van for the night. As soon as they'd rounded the corner she whipped right around and grabbed her husband and dragged him upstairs, intent on taking advantage of their night off.

They showed up to the diner the next morning, at least half an hour later than planned, and this time it wasn't even her fault. Ben had insisted that she join him in the shower earlier, saying it would be more time-efficient that way, and really, who was she to argue?

"You're late," Phasma greeted when she saw them walk through the door. She, Rose, and Hux had shown up early to help set things up before Finn and Poe arrived with the kids. Rey had been gathering and organizing in the background outside of her daughter's periphery attention all week, but her friends were helping with the final setup.

"Sorry! We just got um...held up."

Hux came in from the diner's kitchen carrying plates and utensils, while Rose sat in the corner farthest from the entrance, fighting what looked to be a losing battle with integrating her laptop with the diner's relatively new speaker system that had long since hooked up to the jukebox.

"Your shirt's inside out, Ben," Hux pointed out, dropping the plates on the counter. He said this simply, and for a moment Rey wondered if they'd gotten away with it before the man turned his smirk on them.

A smirk that was shared between Rose and Phasma and one that said they knew exactly why they were late.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Ben said, ignoring the looks with aplomb, and the eye-rolls that followed his claim.

The five of them finished setting things up, pushing aside chairs and stacking tables, leaving a wide empty space in the middle of the diner. While it probably wouldn't have been a problem to have all the guests there normally, Ben had seen fit to call and reserve the space for a private party long in advance, just so the kids could have some room without running the risk of annoying strangers and being an overall hassle.

They didn't want to use the Dojang for obvious reasons, and their apartment, while comfortable, wasn't really suited to have the kind of turnout they were planning on having. It was fine when it was Hannah and Rowan and a few adults, but too many more and things started to get crowded and elbows started knocking over cups, and it just became too much of a mess. Leia's home and backyard would have been good, but it was just a little too out of the way nowadays, especially with Phasma. Hux, and Rose coming in from Mandalore to see them.

The rest of the early afternoon was spent on finishing touches; Rey checking on a cake that was a bit smudged but was perfectly tasty nonetheless, Rose finally getting the integrated speaker system to work with her computer and the "retro" playlist she'd made, Phasma helping Ben with hanging the streamers because those two were giants and they could at least put their height to good use.

Leia, Lando, Chewie and Maz all streamed in eventually, the latter taking one step inside her former establishment and freezing as she took the sight in. She gauged the room, the effort put into it, and the changes done to the diner beyond the decorations, snorted and said, "Glad this place isn't my problem anymore."

Other parents came by and dropped their kids off too, promising to pick them up in a couple of hours, and soon enough the hour of promise approached and Rey received a text from Poe letting them know they were on their way.

"You sure this is a good idea?" Ben said, coming up behind her while she stood in front of a mirror and adjusting a small crown braid he'd put in her hair. "Last time we did this, I got punched for my efforts."

Rey glanced up at him in the reflection. "Last time we scared the crap out of her. We're not going to jump out and shout 'Surprise!' at her like before."

"No, we're just going to stare at her, with several of her classmates when she opens the doors, and we're supposed to expect that our very excitable daughter isn't going to react extremely, especially since all these kids know she got in a fight and are liable to act a bit differently around her."

Ah, he was being protective. Ben was worried about how Hannah was going to interact with the other kids after word of her and Rowan fighting spread. Past experience rearing its ugly head again, she expected.

"We can't hide her away, Ben," Rey murmured, turning around to look up at him. "She's been having fun at home with Rowan but she also misses her friends from school. She's probably a little scared they don't like her anymore."

He looked thoughtful at her words. "Has she said that?"

Rey snorted. "She's ten - well, eleven soon - Ben. I doubt she even knows why she's been so jittery all week."

"I-" Ben spoke up, and then he fell silent. Then he grinned. "Have I ever told you you're pretty good at this mom-thing?"

"I would certainly hope so," Rey snarked. "Otherwise I've been clearly doing something wrong this past decade and you're completely screwed because she's almost a teenager and I'm not sure either of us are ready for that."

With a laugh, Ben hugged her, and everyone else seemed to get the clue and chose to studiously ignore their presence in the poorly lit hallway that led to the restrooms. Rey took the moment to draw strength from Ben's presence, his warmth, the steadfast assurance that he would always be here for her and that he would never stray from them so long as she shined for him.

Another text arrived, and Rey rolled her eyes at the goofy candid picture Poe had taken of the kids in the backseat. The accompanying text said they were five minutes out.

"Alright everybody," Rey said, grabbing everyone's attention because when you yelled like she did people either ran or they listened. "Places! If you're not done setting up then just drop it where you stand because the guest of honor is arriving!"

When the moment came, the surprise altogether wasn't that surprising. When Hannah and Rowan walked in the door, and she stopped dead-center in front of the doorway, her eyes went wide, and the little girl did the only logical thing her mind could do when confronted with a non-scary surprise party: She jumped and slugged a punch at the closest moving thing, which in this case, was her Uncle Poe, coming up the rear.

Rey absolutely didn't miss the way Ben snickered when he saw that.

* * *

It was about an hour into the party that Luke finally managed to drop by. This was announced with a squeal of delight and a human-borne rocket torpedo in the shape of a little girl launching herself at him from across the room.

"Grandpa Luke!" Hannah greeted, or rather, shouted. "Grandma Ami! You made it!"

It was then that she collided with Luke, all four foot and a half of living mass almost crashing him and his wife to the floor. Luke held, but Rey could see that it was only because he'd been half-expecting it. His hair was now completely grey, having lost all traces of his former blond sheen, but there was still a boyish charm to his grin that had never faded.

"Hey, Hannah-banana!" Luke said. Hannah had her arms wrapped around his torso and he directed them to a free booth.

Hannah released the sixty-seven years old man from his prison of a hug as he sat down. She was taller than him while he was sitting, and Rey's breath hitched when she realized that. It wasn't too long ago that the girl was barely level with his waist, and yet at the same time that felt like a distant memory.

"Don't call me that," Hannah said, completely serious. The effect was lost due to the glittering ribbons she'd somehow convinced Leia to put in her hair, tying it up in a set of braids that would have been impossible for anyone but Leia's bloodline to handle and comb out.

"I dunno'," Luke said, apparently unconvinced by her argument. "You still like bananas?"

"Of course!"

"And you're still named Hannah, right?"

"Grandpa!" Hannah giggled, and the sound was like a wind chime on a breezeless day.

"Then I don't see why I can't call you that," Luke said, far too confidently and with too much overture for the subject matter. "Isn't that right, Hannah-banana?"

She made a face, and Luke and Amilyn's laughter joined up with everyone else's.

Hannah left then, off to join her friends who'd put their board game on hold for the sake of the birthday girl. At least they weren't playing Twister anymore. Rey didn't exactly feel like explaining to the kids' parents why some of their kids ended up with bruises. Apparently Twister was serious business and no one had thought to tell Rey that.

As if by some unspoken of signal, Rey and her family found themselves gathering together in the corner of the diner to talk and converse. It was just them, the other parents all having beggared off to do other things while they agreed to watch the kids, so the air of privacy and familiarity was welcome and well-earned.

The others broke apart into smaller conversations, but it was Luke who turned to Rey and Ben and directly said, "So I heard about what happened. What's this I hear about her punching someone?"

Ben slid into the seat opposite of him and Rey followed right behind him. "It's not much," he said, running his hand through his hair like he did when he was anxious, "She and Rowan got into a fight earlier in the week about a problem regarding some bullies."

"Bullies, huh?" Luke seemed to contemplate the word. "It get bad?"

"Not too bad but," Ben frowned, and Rey could see that he was trying not to get visibly agitated at the memory of  _why_  the fight happened, "it wasn't pretty either. Hannah broke a kid's nose and Rowan bit another. Bad enough to call us down to the meet with one of the administrators."

"Mmmm," Luke said noncommittally. "It sounds like you and her talked things out though."

"We did, but you know how schools are," Ben shrugged, "If there's a fight, everyone involved shares the blame."

"How's Hannah feel about this?" Leia spoke up from behind them. Rey turned to see that she'd sat in the booth behind Ben and Rey to listen in, living up to the stereotype the wonderful, slightly nosy grandmother with no shame.

"Hannah's being Hannah about it," Ben said, not intentionally obliquely but Rey could see how it would come off that way. "She's burying it under a lot of playing and talking with Rowan, but I can tell she's pretty worried it's going to happen again."

Just then, Hannah and her friends were passing them by, all abuzz with words happening too fast to make out and a jittery lively aura taking hold of every one of them, even Rowan. Apparently the group was playing some game involving creating fictional people and they were running by asking all the adults various questions too quickly to parse and then moving on before anyone could make sense of of what was happening.

It was when they passed their table, that Ben reached out, snatching Hannah once again and drawing another shriek from her before her friend group dissipated, dispersed without their leader who was now in the enemies' claws. Except Rowan, but that was probably because the boy had more heart than sense.

"Oh come on!" Hannah complained. She wriggled in her father's grip some more, and huffed a frustrated breath when she couldn't get out. "Dad, come on! We're going to play Blink Assassin and I'm going to win!"

Well, that sounded positively bloodthirsty. Perfectly in line with what she would have expected for their child, but still. Children were little monsters at the best of times, and they kept coming up with the most creatively inspired names for their games to prove it so.

"Slow down!" Ben laughed. "Slow down, you crazy child!"

There was an audible intake of breath from behind their seat and Rey didn't have to look to see that it was Leia.

Ben seemed to realize just what, exactly, he'd said.

Hannah stopped struggling completely. "Dad?"

He looked down at her, really looked down at her, a smile so soft as to be made of dreams appeared on his face, and his voice was just a bit more hoarse than when he'd spoken earlier. "Slow down, kid. You're...you're growing up too fast."

He let go, and Hannah stepped back inspecting him for anything out of the ordinary. Finally, she brightened and said, "I'm not going any faster than I need to be."

Then she leaned in and, disregarding the onlooking stares from her friends and everyone else there, Hannah leaned in and kissed his cheek. She immediately retracted, stepping back, blushing, and  _gah_  someone give Rey a camera because this moment needed to be preserved for posterity.

"Hey Hannah," Luke asked, interrupting this tender moment. Rey shot her father-figure a nasty look that dared him to ruin the scene, but he continued, unimpressed with the death ray pointed his way. "I heard you got in a fight."

"Oh. Yeah." She looked down at her feet.

"Hmm," Luke hummed, and then said, "Are you sorry you did?"

"...not really."

A flicker of interest alit in Luke's eyes. "Why's that?"

"Because they deserved it!" she said, suddenly defiant and challenging in the face of this adult who dared to question her past motives. A few days grace did a wonder on anything like guilt, especially when it was from someone other than her parents. "They were wrong and okay,  _maybe_  I shouldn't have punched first, but they deserved it." Then she stuck out her jaw, crossed her arms, and uttered, "And I'll do it again, if they come after Ro again."

Contrary to Rey's expectations, Luke and Leia both started chuckling. "Oh yeah?" he said, seeming cheered by her honest answer. He caught Ben's eye and winked. "That sounds like something a Solo would say."

Ben snorted and in fact, he seemed offended by the remark. "I'm sorry, are saying she takes after  _me_  in that regard?"

"Well if not you then who?" Amilyn postulated, and there was a knowing glint in her eye as she surveyed her audience at the table.

"Really?  _Really?_ " Ben's wry tone cleared the mildly serious air and he immediately jerked his head at Rey. "Do none of us remember  _Rey_  being the one who dragged all our friends to an illegal fightcl-"

He stopped and seemed to realize that certain members of his audience to still weren't cleared to hear  _this_  particular story.

"Illegal?" Hannah asked curiously, glancing to Rey, "Mom, what'd you do?"

Oh, excellent. Well  _done_ , Ben.

Rey bit her lip and tried not to laugh. "Uh...I'll tell you all about it when you're older."

"Well, maybe not  _all_  of it," she heard someone mutter, amused. Hux, she thought.

"Maybe you kids should go join the others?" Ben offered tentatively, and then, seeing the mutinous expressions forming on their faces decided to sweeten the pot by saying, "We're going to be opening presents soon. Go, finish your game."

And just like that, any lingering curiosity was gone as Hannah's mind instantly latched on to the second most important word in the dictionary, right behind  _chocolate._

"Presents!" she exclaimed. She grabbed Rowan's hand and practically yanked the poor boy after her, the last thing they saw being the curious and suspicious glance Rowan was shooting Ben.

Sharp kid that one, Rey's mind supplied. It did her heart well to know that Hannah had such a good friend though.

When they were out of earshot it was Leia who spoke next. "Hey Ben?"

He turned to look at her.

"I wouldn't worry about Hannah," she said, eyes glassy and raw with emotion, "I think she's going to turn out just fine."

Rey's heart warmed a bit to see him smile softly.

"...thanks, mom."

* * *

Things wrapped up at the diner a couple hours later, barely with any stragglers waiting for their parents to pick them up, and all of a sudden, their daughter was eleven.

Rey couldn't help but wonder where all the years had gone. She couldn't help but wonder, as she was surrounded by the people a sad, angry orphan from nowhere had come to call family, exactly  _how_  she'd become so lucky.

Leaning against the jukebox, she observed them all, and her eyes landed on Finn first.

Her first friend, and suddenly she was back in ninth grade lamenting to herself about the unfortunate assignment that was  _Romeo and Juliet_ , sitting at an empty table in the cafeteria.

> _"I don't know anyone here." A particularly gross belch came from the next table over. "I'm not even sure I want to."_
> 
> _"Right?" he exclaimed. "They're all assholes!"_
> 
> _"I know!" Rey laughed. "Some girl keeps glaring at me every time I see her just because I asked her to stop making out with her boyfriend in front of my locker!"_
> 
> _"Nice," he said, grinning. He thought for a minute and extended a fist to her. "Well, you seem alright. Friends? The name's Finn."_
> 
> _"Rey." She nodded, finally smiling back, bumping her fist to his. "Friends."_

Next to him, stood the brilliant, petite woman whose smile could light up the darkest room. The woman whose regular texts and phone calls and visits were occasionally the only thing that kept her sane. The girl who'd arguably always had her head on a lot straighter than Rey did.

> _"Miss Tico," Master Skywalker called, "What are the five tenets of Taekwondo?"_
> 
> _A quiet voice replied quickly, "Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance," she paused, "Uh...Self Control, and...Indomitable Spirit. Sir."_
> 
> _"Good." He took a minute to scribble something on one of the papers that was stacked on the table that sat at the front of the room. Ben was sitting behind it, watching, and helping Master Skywalker grade the testing. "Now, can you tell me which of the five tenets is most important?"_
> 
> _Rose didn't answer for a minute, then finally said, "I don't know, sir."_
> 
> _He hummed, and glanced over at Rey._
> 
> _Rey took a deep breath, knowing she was next._
> 
> _"Miss Kenobi," he smiled fondly. "Same question."_

And holding her hand, a man she'd once thought to dislike, who'd only ever tried to do what was right. A man who was more kind and thoughtful than he'd ever willingly let on.

> _"Rey, this is Hux," Ben explained, "we lived together for a few years in college."_
> 
> _"Nice to meet you," she smiled._
> 
> _The pale redhead inspected her curiously, before nodding and returning her greeting. He seemed nice enough, Rey supposed, but she couldn't make out the expression he had whenever he looked in her direction._
> 
> _"I'm making plans to cook these two," Ben gestured to Rey, and Luke, who had come to see what all the noise was about, "dinner next weekend once I've got everything moved in. Want to join us?_
> 
> _Hux seemed to give a great deal of thought before nodding in agreement. "Let me know if I need to bring anything."_
> 
> _"Should be fine. Remember, I'm cooking."_
> 
> _"Ah," Hux seemed to think deeply on that for a moment. "I'll make sure to have the EMTs on standby then."_

Rey's eyes scanned the group and found the energizer-bunny in human form - the one she'd gotten off to a rocky start with, but who'd inspired more hope and confidence in any of them than she could have ever asked for.

> _"Poe, this is Rey, one of our Blue Belts." Ben explained, getting up and stretching his legs. "Rey, this is an idiot. Ignore him."_
> 
> _"Nice to meet you," Poe said, smiling charmingly at Rey._
> 
> _Rey resisted the urge to roll her eyes again as she returned the pleasantries."Nice to meet you too."_
> 
> _"What's up Poe?" Ben asked._
> 
> _"Finally got my Black Belt," he said, standing up and hooking his thumbs through his belt, which looked as pristine and still as Rey's. "And I'm starting college in Coruscant this fall."_
> 
> _"No kidding," Ben chuckled. "Am I going to have to put rabid dog signs up in the Dojang when you try to join us?"_
> 
> _"Bite me Solo," Poe fired back without missing a beat._

And laughing at one of his jokes, a tall blonde who Rey would always be unbelievably proud of, because she'd watched the woman have her carefully-built confidence stripped to nothing...and then she'd watched her walk right back into the lion's den and reclaim what she'd lost.

> _"Hoh, this is going to be interesting," someone said from beside Rey, startling her from her train of thought, "Ben Solo's going to spar."_
> 
> _Rey turned to look at the stranger. The newcomer was tall, taller than Ben even. Her pale blonde hair was styled in a crop cut that, combined with her aquiline stare and high cheekbones, added a natural air of intimidation that had Rey instinctively taking a step back before she realized it._
> 
> _"Who are you?" Rey said, looking to the side to see if anyone else noticed the stranger who'd crept onto their side._
> 
> _"Name's Phasma," said the blonde, crossing her arms and nodding to the ring, "and I think the match is about to start."_

Rey took in a deep breath, and felt her eyes well with tears. These were the people who'd followed her into hell and hadn't questioned it for a moment.  _These_  were the people who'd helped save her life, more than any of them would probably know, and  _these_  were the people who'd helped save the life of the man she loved.

And in her thirty-something years, it truly struck home, that blood meant very little to the definition of family.

_This_  was family.

"Hey, sweetheart," a low, soothing voice said from beside her. "Everything okay?"

She nodded. "Yeah, Ben. It's perfect."

If he'd noticed the tears he hadn't said anything, and instead chose to say, "I think my mom's heading out - Luke and Amilyn too, probably. What do you think of us inviting our friends back to the apartment for some drinks or something?" With a slight smile, he added, "Hannah's already dead-set on having Rowan for a sleepover tonight, so I thought it'd be nice if we all visited for a while while the kids hang out in Hannah's room."

Rey glanced over at him, and nodded. "Yeah," she whispered, "Yeah, that'd be good. I'm not quite ready to say goodbye."

* * *

"I can't  _believe_  you almost told Hannah about the Fight Club Fuck Up!" Phasma laughed boisterously, " _Really_ , Benji-"

They were all crowded into the living room, nobody really commenting on the fact that it was a bit too small to fit all of them. Hannah and Rowan had, as usual, run off into her room and were probably watching a terrible old horror movie...a habit they'd adopted from their parents, whether they knew it or not.

Phasma let out another hearty cackle, just before sipping at her wine, "That is  _not_  a story you should be telling my niece!"

"I almost died when he said it," Finn groaned, shaking his head in amusement and disbelief, "Really man, mentioning our presence at an illegal fight club in front of our kids?"

"It's not as bad as it sounds!" Ben chuckled, starting to blush. They'd quickly run out of seats, so Rey was practically on his lap, feeling his chest shake as he laughed, "I completely forgot she was standing there. I stopped before I said too much - you were all there!"

Hux snorted, rolling his eyes slightly, "How do you forget about your own daughter? Especially when she's standing right there!"

"I just can't believe your kid broke another kid's nose," Poe blurted out, smacking a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. "I mean, honestly I've been wanting to high-five her all week. Did you notice? Her hand looks totally fine. Her form must have been pretty good."

Rey leaned over Rose and Finn to fist-bump the man again, grinning mischievously, and Phasma erupted in laughter, claiming, "That's my girl! Taking after Auntie Phas. I couldn't be more proud."

"Oh, I don't know if she got that from you," Hux smirked. "I can think of another particularly feisty woman in her life."

"Why Hux," Rey asked dramatically, putting a hand to her chest, "did you just compliment me?"

He turned a bit red. "Only because you're partially to thank for the existence of my favorite niece."

"She's your only niece," Rose pointed out, teasing him.

They all started laughing as Hux seemed to just realize that, blushing further, and Phasma saved him from further embarrassment by shushing them all. "Okay, okay, I think I know a way we can tell them that story. After all," she mused, "it's an important one. Maybe someday when they're older, they can know the whole truth, but for now…" she hesitated, and smiled softly, "What do you guys think? Are a couple of eleven year olds too old to be tucked into bed with a story?"

Rey glanced back at Ben, who looked a little concerned, but after a moment he conceded with a nod. "Okay," he said quietly, the corners of his lips just barely turning up, "Let's go see."

* * *

Had Rey been the one suggesting it, she just  _knew_  it would have gotten an eyeroll and a  _but mommm, we're watching a movie!_

Auntie Phas was  _cool_ , though. At least according to Hannah, and Rowan tended to agree.

Adorable little traitors.

Years earlier, back when Poe and Finn adopted Rowan, the four of them had realized that their kids were very likely going to end up being best friends, and sometime around Hannah's seventh or eighth birthday, Ben had suggested they get her a trundle bed so sleepovers would be a bit easier.

Rules would probably (definitely) change as the two got older, but for now they were both settled on Hannah's bed, the trundle not yet set up for Rowan, and Phasma was at the foot of it, halfway through a highly glossed over version of the night everything had changed, told in a hushed voice. Everyone else had found seating in the room, either in a desk chair or on the floor, but Ben and Rey were leaning against the bedroom door frame, watching it all.

"...and the princess needed help from all of her friends to save the prince from the darkness…there was even music. One of the princess's friends - a brilliant warrior, picked marvelous '80s music."

Hannah interrupted curiously, "That sounds cool, but Kylo Ren is a really weird name. Was he evil? All the bad guys have weird names."

Phasma swallowed hard, and glanced back to Ben with sort-of wide eyes, apparently not expecting the question. Rey watched him hesitate, but after a moment he walked over and sat at the edge of the bed, taking Hannah's hand as he looked down at her and said softly, "No, kid, he wasn't evil. He was just scared, and sad, and very lost. He did some bad things, and he was convinced that nobody would forgive him. But he just needed something to remind him of who he was, and something to help get him home."

"Something like what?" Rowan asked curiously, "A map?"

"No," Ben hummed, "not exactly."

Hannah frowned. "So what'd he need?"

Ben looked back to her and Rey watched as he stood and as his lips curled into a slight smile. With just a few steps he closed the distance between them and stared down at her, reaching up to cup her face.

_Oh._ He was waiting for her to finish the story.

"Kylo Ren didn't need a map to get home," she whispered, gazing up into dark eyes, "He was brought there by a girl."

"No, that's not quite it, sweetheart," Ben said softly. He stared down at her, and she knew exactly what he saw in her eyes. Love, and stars that had only ever shined for him.

"No, sweetheart," he repeated, "I was led home by starlight."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Onfire's Twitter](https://twitter.com/thebuildingsno1)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


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